The Pathless Reviews

The Pathless is ranked in the 75th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
8 / 10
Nov 21, 2020

The Pathless’ story and movement mechanics are where it truly shines. Exploring the landscape at superhuman speed feels like absolute magic and makes the game’s large surface easy to explore. Full of colour, beautiful landscapes, and mysterious gods and puzzles, The Pathless is sure to keep you engaged from beginning to end.

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8 / 10
Nov 18, 2020

The Pathless is an open-world exploration title with unique puzzle-solving mechanics and one of the year's best soundtracks. The tense and enjoyable boss encounters were a delightful surprise. The free-form approach to the exploration and plethora of puzzles to solve, most being optional, give you the sensation of freedom while traversing. It's simply fun, aimlessly soaring through the air with my eagle, bouncing across rivers and down snow-covered mountaintops shooting at talismans. It's not a long experience, as I clocked my completion at roughly eight hours, but there are plenty of trophies to earn by collecting all of the relics, along with completing various other tasks.

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8 / 10
Nov 20, 2020

Somewhere between Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Shadow of the Colossus and Journey, The Pathless is a beautiful and very pleasant experience, that feels very clever, smooth and relaxing. If you feel the need to travel somewhere else in this complicated time, just give a chance to this game.

Review in French | Read full review

8 / 10.0
Nov 17, 2020

It's the absence of stand-out creature encounters that weighs heavy on The Pathless as a whole. And there's a redundancy to said moments that never rears its head when freely exploring and solving puzzles. Undoubtedly, the exploration and puzzle-solving represent The Pathless at its best. Giant Squid's latest manages to perfectly capture the calm before the storm, along with the post-battle respite that few games master in equal measure. In that case, it would seem the disappointing creature confrontations do serve a greater purpose to some degree.

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8 / 10.0
Nov 10, 2020

The Pathless is an excellent game for the camper in me that wants to spend some time exploring outside.

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GameMAG
Top Critic
8 / 10
Nov 30, 2020

The Pathless suffers from several things: repetitive puzzles, lack of depth in terms of abilities, complete absence of mini-map and fast-travel, some boring sections, and rather short length. But at the same time this game has a rather unique charm to it, which is a good enough reason to actually return to it again and again.

Review in Russian | Read full review

8 / 10.0
Nov 17, 2020

The Pathless makes a fantastic first impression, with its arresting visuals, fun mechanics, and fascinating dark world. The game's middle section does start to drift a bit, but it sticks the landing with a great final level and an electrifying and emotionally-satisfying climax. Like The Pathless' feathery co-star, Giant Squid has raised their game to lofty new heights.

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VG247
Top Critic
Nov 10, 2020

I hope it’s clear that I really enjoyed The Pathless, a game that prior to playing hadn’t really caught my eye. I hope it isn’t lost amongst the PS5’s bigger, noisier releases, as it’s something different and uplifting. It’s rare to find such tension and threat in a game that’s also so peaceful, but Giant Squid has managed it. In truth we could all do with a bit of light in our lives at the moment.

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8 / 10.0
Nov 10, 2020

Clocking in at roughly seven hours, don't be surprised if you complete it in one or two sessions. It's a hard game to put down

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Metro GameCentral
GameCentral
Top Critic
8 / 10
Nov 12, 2020

A hugely entertaining open world puzzler where simply getting from A to B is more entertaining than most games in their entirety.

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Nov 10, 2020

The Pathless switches effortlessly between relaxing exploration and exhilarating story moments, and it's altogether incredible.

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8 / 10.0
Nov 10, 2020

The Pathless combines a simple but fun movement system and a world brimming with secrets to uncover.

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8.1 / 10.0
Feb 3, 2023

Mixing together exploration and puzzle-solving, while never really cranking up the challenge, The Pathless has a unique feel on Switch

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8.1 / 10.0
Nov 17, 2020

Its stylish visuals and slick gameplay make The Pathless stand out as a truly epic experience. If the concept of whipping around massive intricate environments at ridiculous speeds while solving puzzles and taking down bosses appeals to you then definitely check it out.

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81 / 100
Nov 12, 2020

The Pathless is a great game. It’s beyond stunning, with a remarkable soundtrack and phenomenal sense of place. Refined traversal mechanics do a lot of the heavy lifting, while puzzles and boss battles could use an extra dose of variety. Though the formula gets tired by the end of the tale, The Pathless proudly stands among giants of the genre like Journey.

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83 / 100
Nov 10, 2020

The Pathless is a beautiful and epic adventure from the people behind Abzu. A must have for every indie lover.

Review in Spanish | Read full review

Lee Mehr
Top Critic
8.5 / 10.0
Dec 13, 2020

An inspired & nuanced structure demonstrates where Giant Squid took the road less traveled, and it made all the difference.

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85 / 100
Dec 4, 2020

The pathless offers us a huge open world, full of nuances and beautiful landscapes through which we will move at full speed. With ideas taken slightly from Breath of the Wild, we will have a good amount of challenges and intense fights that we will love. Special mention to Austin Wintory's soundtrack and great voice performances. Highly recommended.

Review in Spanish | Read full review

8.5 / 10.0
Nov 22, 2020

The Pathless is yet another brilliant game from Giant Squid, one with great harmony between almost all of its elements that sends you on a short adventure in its unknown and strange world.

Review in Persian | Read full review

85 / 100
Nov 10, 2020

The Pathless has a slow start, but the journey is rewarding. The technical part, the soundtrack and the game world are incredible. It can be considered repetitive later on, but the gameplay and the boss battles make up for that. It's hard to say in words, but the "experience" of playing The Pathless is unique.

Review in Portuguese | Read full review