

These stealth sequences are overused, but are mercifully easy. When this happens, the player simply must sneak by it.

Periodically, though, an angry beast whips across the terrain, engulfing it in flames. The Hunter is often airborne, gliding with her eagle over vast spaces, allowing the player to soak in the beauty of the world. My biggest complaint about The Pathless is the repetitive structure of each world. In general, the puzzles are fun to solve and a nice change of pace, since the game largely hangs its hat on environmental navigation. These puzzles are well thought-out a few stumped me for a bit, but their diminutive size doesn’t overwhelm and there are only so many approaches you can try.
#The pathless metacritic free
To free them, the Hunter must use the bow to solve environmental puzzles, sometimes shooting arrows through flames at specific angles to ignite pyres, and other times lining up a trick shot to thread three rings at once. The Lightstones are always locked away behind an energy field. Most of the notable places are ancient ruins or dilapidated structures that hold an item called the Lightstone, which the Hunter must return to towers to cleanse the area of the curse. I just ran to areas that looked important and my assumption was almost always right. The exploration is enthralling, and I never once felt like I was lost or in need of some kind of assistance. As the terrain becomes more vertically challenging, the Hunter relies on a magical technique, almost like a submarine’s sonar, which illuminates something of note in a red hue for a second. Giant Squid created a freeing open-world design aided by clear visual lines that almost always hold a point of interest no matter what direction you face. Holding true to The Pathless name, you won’t find a bread-crumb trail to follow, a map to look at, or even a defined order to any of the objectives. The tightening of the DualSense’s adaptive triggers is cool, helping with timing just through the feel the controller gives off. It later evolves for flight purposes, allowing the Hunter to soar up the side of mountains. This style of movement is odd, but it’s handled remarkably well in execution and ends up being a blast to use. As arrows hit the mark, the Hunter bounds across the terrain in quick jolts. You just have to time the shots, which ends up creating rhythmic gameplay. You don’t have to worry about lining up these shots, the lock-on system does that, even if the talisman is off screen. Using an ingenious lock-and-shoot system, every arrow that hits an environment-based talisman gives the Hunter a burst of speed. The Hunter’s sole weapon is a bow, and despite what you may think, it is rarely used for combat. The Godslayer gets plenty of screen time to reveal why he’s a formidable threat. The world’s lore is uncovered through reading tomes, but Giant Squid also frames dramatic moments in beautifully animated cutscenes that scream of The Legend of Zelda’s recent stylization. You find these past Hunters’ skeletal remains littered along the sprawling open-world areas, showing just how close they came – a great visual-narrative technique that guides you to more perilous places. For generations, Hunters have attempted this feat, but none have succeeded. The Hunter is focused on one task: ridding the world of a curse created by a being known as Godslayer. This adventure into a dangerous land is seen through the eyes of a character known only as “The Hunter,” a gifted archer who becomes the unlikely ally of a mystical eagle capable of lifting her high into the air. Giant Squid handles the tonal shift well, creating a better game that embraces a true sense of discovery, while being every bit as gorgeous as its underwater predecessor. That title was peaceful and serene, whereas The Pathless acts as a counterpoint, inviting you into a dark world consumed by fire and brimstone. The first shot in The Pathless is of a sprawling sea, a visual nod to developer Giant Squid’s previous work on the ocean adventure game Abzû.
