They also carry the weights necessary for The Pathless' puzzles. This eagle will carry the player through the air to climb towers and sail over bodies of water. After rescuing the Eagle Mother in the game's beginning and tutorial section, players are gifted with an eagle companion. While the player seems to be the only person left alive in the world of The Pathless, they aren't truly alone. Though the gameplay and styles are different, their juxtaposition enhances the experience and actually works collaboratively to create a world that feels more fully fleshed out. Ultimately, the feeling of the ground being pulled out from under a player actually helps contribute to the unsettling nature of the stealth mini-game. The shift from quiet focus on moving puzzle components to the immediacy of hiding during a red storm feels jarring and almost as if two games were merged together. These red storms are avoidable but serve to break up the fast-paced quietude of the main game with anxious stealth missions. Players must find their friend by sneaking through the grass, avoiding movement while the tainted gods' headlight-like eyes are trained upon them. In these intense moments, the player's hawk companion is blown away from them. When this happens, players enter a storm of red light and heavy winds that gives the impression of a wildfire. This stillness is occasionally interrupted as the tainted gods cross a player's path. The movement creates a flow state, almost as if the player is surfing on the ground from one target to the next. Players travel the large distances between puzzles and towers by running, gaining stamina and speed boosts by hitting targets with arrows as they go. But what sets The Pathless apart is its sprawling, open-world explored in a Sonic the Hedgehog-esque speed-run. To accomplish this, the player is provided only with a bow and arrow and companion eagle, limiting the ways of interacting with foes and puzzles.īeating the mini-bosses and ultimately the big bad in a beautiful, fantastical world seems almost cliché for video games at this point, and the similarities to such epics as Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild are readily apparent. Each god must then be faced and brought back to the light by destroying the Godslayer's hold over them. Like so much of the rest of The Pathless, I was left to wonder.To return light to the world, the player must secure the lightstones, guarded by puzzles, and return them to the obelisks that have been overrun with darkness. When did it happen? What was it about? The game doesn't say. On the side of a mountain that I wasn't meant to climb, I found the skeletons of two fallen soldiers of Sauro-one of the Tall Ones-near the bones of a giant cyclops of some sort, clearly the aftermath of some small but deadly battle. Deer ran at my side as I raced across the plains, and stroking my eagle's feathers occasionally brought snuggles. I felt a real sense of standing in the aftermath of something real and powerful, that impacted lives far beyond my own. The fallen fanatics of the Godslayer have final memories of their own, and some of them paint a more sympathetic picture than you might expect. Those dying thoughts can be read by the Hunter, and they're often very somber: Some followers of the Tall Ones remain devoted to the end, but others met their end in the grip of fear, abandonment, anger, and broken faith. There's a practical value to exploring because discovering hidden gems can greatly empower your eagle friend, but the real value for me is the feeling of history it creates across ancient battlefields, ruined encampments, ornate, crumbling ruins, and the final memories of long-dead pilgrims, soldiers, and usurpers.
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