In 2012, under the direction of this game company, Artistic Director Matt Nava developed a specific journey, a poetic work that quickly seduced the press and gamers with its adopted graphic note, touching story and fabulous musical compositions. and its original multiplayer part. Building on this success, Matt Nava and several members of his team, including composer Austin Wintory, decided to set up Giant Squid, his own studio, to offer his own vision to the world. From there, a first project was born in 2016, the contemplative work ABZÛ, which unfortunately experiences the inevitable comparison with her older journey. Four years later, Matt Nava, aware of his past mistakes, once again urges Austin Wintory to set up The Pathless, our theme of the day.
The Pathless – We discover the first board of the game together
PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, it doesn’t matter:
We were lucky enough to get our hands on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions of The Pathless, and we’ve found that there aren’t any notable differences between the two builds. Whether on the eighth generation or ninth generation Sony console, the title remains lush and offers many great panoramas over and over again. In the end, the only difference is the presence or absence of vibration in the controller’s R2 trigger. An addition that didn’t seem essential to us when we tried the next version of the game, so plenty of room for improvement. However, if you switch from the PlayStation 4 version to the PlayStation 5 version of The Pathless, and not the other way around, this little addition, although anecdotal, is still overlooked! Casually, these small vibrations give your recordings a feeling of power.
The world is in darkness! The Deicide, bloodthirsty murderer, wants to dictate the path of living beings, and for this he has only one way to destroy the universe by robbing it of its light. Fortunately, determined to plant their arrow in the knees of this gigantic monster, the player comes into this world under the grip of darkness to take control of a young hunter who will encounter a winged deity. A majestic eagle who accompanies you on this dreamlike search to escape the building built by ABZÛ and especially Journey.
Flexible and accessible gameplay in the service of speed
Although they have a strong poetic and contemplative dimension, as well as many elements here and there from previous productions by Giant Squid and especially Matt Nava, The pathless moves away from his ancestors from his synopsis. Here the new production of the Californian studio gives up the pacifistic aspect of the man’s first creations (Flower, ABZÛ, Journey) and leaves room for a much darker story. where it will be necessary to make the arrowheads speak in order to defeat five targets of imposing sizes. A proposal that in many ways reminds us of a particular shadow of the colossus that we will return to later.
To kill these five colossi, our brave and unusual hunter will use her agility and strange bow to run faster and faster in green spaces as far as the eye can see. But that’s not all, thanks to her makeshift companion, namely the divine eagle, our heroine, who is not stingy, will indulge in crazy races in which it will be possible to practice acrobatics with ease. . Indeed, In The Pathless the player will be constantly surprised by these always impressive, fluid and intuitive movements. All you have to do is hold the L2 button to accelerate, use the R2 button to fire talismans, and generate speed. and jump or fly with the X button. Therefore, the player will quickly feel at home in this universe and traveling through land and sky will give him a real feeling of freedom (common point between Matt Nava’s various productions since Flower). Obviously, that speed in gameplay goes hand in hand with the build-up of the universe, which has to constantly gain height and go from one point to another to solve many of the puzzles that make up the second part of the Pathless gameplay.
Inspirations from the dozen and highly repetitive game mechanics
Even if The Pathless manages to break free of its elders, that doesn’t mean that it will arrive on our favorite media with a completely original recipe. The contemplative game varies approaches by offering races, as we indicated above, but also infiltration, combat, exploration and puzzles. Every aspect of the game ultimately resembles current or out-of-date productions of the game landscape. Aside from Shadow of the Colossus for world building and clashes, the most striking example that keeps popping up while playing The Pathless is of course the inevitable legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for the feeling of freedom it offers, the graphic aspect, the many puzzles hidden in the sanctuaries and the towers that have to be climbed to restore the light. Game mechanics tested and approved, but unfortunately not used sensibly in this new creation.
While the Pathless is great in many ways, in the end he always offers the same steps, which inevitably leaves the player feeling tired. The latter have to visit four plateaus (forest plateau, steppe de sequoias, lowlands and mountain tundra), which show a very pronounced biome on paper. Unfortunately this is wrong! The first three levels look like two drops of water or almost. Only the last world, the Tundra de la Montagne, shows a different proposal due to its snow-covered landscape and steep areas. Once the player arrives at one of these places, he must gain altitude and scan the area with his eagle sight directly from the Assassin’s Creed saga to locate the important points: the famous sanctuary puzzle and the three great towers of Ubisoft, the need to be climbed later to clear the area. Now all that remains to be done is to solve the various puzzles that constantly play with the same ideas (torches to light, mirrors to rotate, cobblestones to move and stone circles to position) to win a total of six suitable golden statuettes. Use in Ubisoft’s famous towers to summon the region’s final boss. A boss to be chased in a race, epic certainly, but identical every time, and face to face in a circular arena. You get it, The Pathless Goals offer us only one and only one chart that is repeated four times. The title, which once offered players a unique sense of freedom, ultimately reveals an overly mechanical construction.
On the terrace of the Premier Chef Cernos
Note on storm:
Exalted artistic direction, really exalted
Since Matt Nava has been at the helm, he has served us time and again with majestic works carried by sublime and often unique artistic directions. Such is the case with ABZÛ, the titles he designed with this game company, and of course The Pathless. The new creation of the artistic director gives us again a fascinating world in which many remarkable paintings are gathered, in which one only has to observe to travel in this universe where everything seems gigantic. The environments presented are just magical, especially when the dynamic weather shows the tip of its nose to vocalize the snow-covered trees in the mountains or paint the world red when there is an enemy in the area. Everything is always beautiful! Unfortunately, as we indicated above, due to the lack of variety, the player will stop admiring the settings that surround them. When you remove the various open buildings from the equation, there are ultimately only two types of environments: green plains and snow-capped mountains.
A graphic touch without high-quality sound design is of course nothing. This is where composer Austin Wintory comes in. Once again, the musician with The Pathless will delight music lovers as theThis title regularly features great compositions leading to your bucolic walks or violent clashes. Additionally, the final battle of the game is embellished by one of those grandiose scores, so we almost forget the few legibility concerns about this final battle.
The notes
+Good arguments
- Exciting car chases
- Unique and fascinating music compositions
- An artistic direction to die for if you regularly offer magnificent panoramas
- A real sense of freedom
- A duo that works
- A finale in apotheosis
– –Negative points
- Repeated game mechanics
- Slower phases are much less relevant
- A lack of commitment
- Difficult movements in the tightest places
- Infiltration phases in poorly designed storms
With The Pathless, the developers of Giant Squid finally free themselves from the rules that were set by the excellent journey. In addition to these suspension bridges and dreamy locations, the new production by the Californian studio reveals its own recipe. A particularly effective recipe that can offer players many fascinating sequences and a believable universe that lies in a masterful artistic direction. Unfortunately, this new recipe also offers terribly repetitive phases of the game. In the four offered levels you have to constantly perform the same maneuvers, solve the same puzzles, defeat the same bosses and climb the same towers. As a result, The Pathless is indeed a project that will take you a few hours traveling, but unfortunately, it’s not as exotic as a particular ABZÛ or as memorable as the fabulous trip.
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December 03, 2020 at 2:37:16 pm
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