Console Corner: Review of The Pathless

Journey is one of my favorite video games of all time. It is not action galore, frantically mashing buttons, killin' baddies. The opposite rather, Journey is a meditative experience that “shows rather than tells” the player a quasi-zen transcendence of existence. Seeing comparisons of 2023's The Pathless to Journey, I was naturally intrigued. Zen?

Right up front, The Pathless is not Journey 2, nor does it ever intend to be. They are different games. But it's possible to see why comparisons are made. In The Pathless, players start as a robed figure only whose eyes are showing. They traverse an open world—in more ways 'open' than one—trying to locate lightstones that can be used to banish the evil brought about by a three-eyed god-man. Once three pillars are lit by the stones, an area is cleared, paving the way to a boss fight. Rinse and repeat—plus a big boss battle with the three-eyed god-man, and you... win? Play to find out. Based on this, The Pathless bears more in common with Shadow of the Colossus than Journey, but hey, I'm just a cellar-dwelling reviewer.

The majority of players' time in The Pathless will be spent in one of two ways. Traversing the large open space, either shooting arrows at talismans to gain speed bursts or soaring serenely in the air attached to an eagle. These are the ways of moving around the open world. The second way players will be spending time is solving environmental puzzle. There are buttons, levers, moveable objects, lightable candles, and several other things—all of which are used to release the necessary lightstones held in temples and shrines. There is no hand holding here. The player must figure out how to manipulate these things to solve the puzzles.

The Pathless is not a collectible-heavy game, but things do exist throughout the open world. Entirely spurious, they add lore and energy boosts to your eagle wings but are ultimately optional. The player can skip these if they want, sticking to the main game beats, and win (win?) without lacking power or upgrades.

A side note—and one I can't help but make. The in-game language of The Pathless is not English. The main character and three-eyed god-man speak in a language I don't recognize, if not fictitious. The god-man's voice in particular caught my ear as it sounds exactly like Jabba the Hutt. Way-wanna-wanga! Whenever he spoke, I couldn't help laughing.

In the end, The Pathless possesses Journey's focus on the broader cycles of life through a faceless main character. But the mode of gameplay is more about fluid movement, solving environmental puzzles, and defeating layered bosses. A relatively short game, players should expect 9-10 hours to do and see most of what it offers. In our age of 100+ hour games, this is a breath of fresh, and something which allows the game to pack a decent zen punch.