Become the Hunter, a master of archery who travels to a mystical island to dispel a curse of darkness that grips the world. There’s some subtle signposting going on but the main intention is that you should explore essentially at random, using a sort of detective vision to spot puzzles you haven’t solved and check on the current location of the possessed Tall Ones.From the creators of ABZÛ, The Pathless is the mythic adventure of an archer and an eagle in a vast forest.

Overall though, there’s not much narrative in The Pathless and, as you might gather from the name, it attempts to be as non-linear as possible. It soon becomes clear that in order to set things right you’re going to have to have rescue all of the ‘Tall Ones’ by activating special shrines dotted around the four regions of the game map. The graphics aren’t very detailed, and the limited colour palette of cursed areas does get a bit monotonous, but the sense of exploring an untamed wilderness comes across well and feels very cohesive. At full pelt you move at a blisteringly fast pace and the open world map design means there’s plenty of space to just max out and enjoy the silky smooth movement. When you’re running and shooting at the same time your character skids along on her knees, and cartwheels in the air, in such a satisfying manner we still haven’t got tired of it all these hours later. We’re not sure that really makes much sense even when you’re dealing with magic but it’s perfect video game logic because of how much fun it makes merely moving around.

The rest of the time though you’re running around on your own, which uses up a quickly disappearing stamina bar, which in turn is refilled by shooting special targets that litter the island. This leads to you gaining an eagle companion who enables you to glide around for short distances and scope out the world below, a necessity given there’s not a proper map to help you.

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