The Pathless

This launch lineup adventure isn’t a misfire – or lacking in direction

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The world has been plunged into darkness – but enough about 2020, what’s the game about? Easy jokes aside, here you play as the last Hunter. On a quest to restore light to the world, she travels to the source of the all-enshrouding darkness, a cursed isle that none return from, where the worlds of man and spirit intersect. There she must shoot and dash across the realm in search of spirits known as the Tall Ones, with the aim of purging their corruption.

A particular refrain haunts the early areas of the cursed isle and sends me down a memory rabbit hole. The twanging strings echoing through The Pathless’ ruins cast my mind back to Ico and its memorable theme, Castle In The Mist. As I venture into the domain of the first cursed spirit, my thoughts continue to wander: “It’s definitely not a guitar, or a mandolin – but what could it be?” But that’s not all that’s reminiscent of PS2’s own 2002 attempt at myth-making.

The Hunter’s marks aren’t easily cornered. For one thing, each cursed spirit is invincible when you first encounter it, shrouding itself in a raging storm. You need to scour their realm for lightstones and then restore these to the three obelisks dotted around their domain for even a shot at them. Early on, the environmental puzzling required for each lightstone relights parts of my mind palace rarely illuminated since Fumito Ueda’s 2002 fairy tale. Couple that puzzling with characters communicating in a devised language, a puzzle-solving companion you develop a measure of care for, and focussed ‘game design by subtraction,’ and Ico’s influence is clear.