We dart through a thicket of trees and take aim at another target. The arrow zips through the air with the sound of a firework’s whistle, the tension in the DualSense’s trigger slackening along with the bowstring. It’s a bullseye, as they usually are, so we draw our bow once more; again, it lands true. A third hits home, and we’re now either sprinting so fast our environment is a blur or gleefully sliding on our knees like a toddler on a wedding dancefloor as we pull back and loose off another arrow, and another. Then our auto-targeting goes awry and our next arrow thunks harmlessly into a tree when we’ve clear sight of our mark. We shrug it off, little realising that it’s the first sign of trouble; we don’t hear that thunk too often afterward, but both sounds resonate throughout The Pathless from hereon. Whistle and thunk; exhilaration followed by disappointment.
There is the germ of something special in the way you explore most of The Pathless’ sprawling forest setting. Your veiled hunter and their eagle familiar rush across its expanses of land, as you squeeze one trigger to sprint, and another to draw back your bow before releasing to fire at floating talismans. Their presence isn’t fully explained, but no matter – not when each provides you with a burst of speed and a top-up for your stamina meter that quickly ebbs away as long as you keep running. Your aiming reticule will lock onto the nearest target, and on open ground it rarely matters whether it’s the one you had in mind, since they all do the same job and here there’s nothing in the way. Sometimes you’ll jump, not because you need to, but because it feels good. Leap, aim, fire, somersault and repeat: here is a chance to showboat in a game that otherwise prizes momentum and flow over player skill.