The Pathless is a beautiful game made by indie company Giant Squid. It crafts a familiar, yet beautiful, concept. You traverse across ancient lands ravaged by a calamitous conflict, seeking magic lightstones to restore corrupted spirits to their true form. Pathless is one part Breath of the Wild and one part Shadow of the Colossus, yet it crafts an experience all its own.
Pathless combines a few genres, but its main focuses are exploration and navigation. As the game’s name suggests, there is no path to follow in Pathless. There’s no minimap and no guidance system that points you toward your objective. You’ll have to actually navigate your landscape to find the lightstones and towers that will dispel the evil from these lands.
Navigating your landscape is a difficult but rewarding challenge in Pathless. Whether you’re just trying to find enough lightstones to uncorrupt the four spirits, finding enough gems to level your flap ability, or searching for all the lightstones, you might need some help to see you through the lands of the Tall Ones.
Pathless Talismans
When you first arrive in the lands of the Tall Ones, you’ll have a bow and arrow and your own two feet to get you around. More often than not, this is enough in The Pathless.
Floating red and white talismans dot the landscape, sometimes even hovering in the sky. Shooting a talisman with your bow and arrow gives a boost of speed that you can use to catapult yourself into another talisman. You can use this strategy to keep zooming across the landscape.
Firing at a talisman will increase your spirit meter, allowing you to sprint. Outside of an optional boon, shooting at talismans is the only way to increase your spirit meter.
Immediately after you shoot a talisman, part of your spirit meter will be blue. You will receive an extra boost of speed while your spirit meter is still blue, which isn’t a long time. Expending the spirit meter to sprint will cause part of your draining spirit meter to turn orange. One of the best ways to travel in The Pathless is to keep chaining shots on talismans together to keep your boosted momentum going for as long as possible.
Shooting talismans is fun and intuitive. You can even fire at a talisman that is offscreen as long as you’re not too far away.
Proper use of talismans is one of the cornerstones of gameplay in The Pathless. The first area you’ll encounter will teach you some of these uses. This includes using a talisman to boost yourself higher as you jump, or using a chain of talismans to propel yourself across a chasm. This last one, in particular, will come up in a variety of ways.
Skill Shots
There are two ways to successfully fire an arrow at a talisman. The standard way is to hold the button to draw the bow until the red targeting bar around a talisman is full, and then fire. However, you can also use a skill shot. Skill shots require you to fire when the talisman’s targeting bar is exactly half full but give you an extra potent boost of speed.
While skill shots are useful for traveling on the ground, they are most useful for traveling in the air. Whether you’re leaping from a tall building, across a destroyed bridge, or over one of the multitudes of rivers, skill shots can help you reach your destination without having to land. Even when you receive the ability to fly and glide, skill shots are still incredibly useful.
Unfortunately, skill shots are all in the timing and the only real way to get good at them is to practice. Luckily, I’ve found it easier to do several skill shots in a row when trying to cross a short bridge. Otherwise, if you’re trying to get an extra boost before jumping over or across something, consider fully locking onto the talisman while at a standstill before jumping. It’s not the most graceful solution, but it does work in a pinch.
Talisman Types
There are three types of talismans you’ll encounter for traversal. The basic red and white talismans, orange talismans, and blue talismans. Orange talismans give you a much more powerful boost. Blue talismans give you a huge upward kick as well as a sizable speed boost.
Orange and Blue talismans only get unlocked later in The Pathless, so you won’t need to worry about them immediately. Orange talismans are your reward for defeating Sauro and are very useful. I’ve found that orange talismans can send you skipping across water, sometimes letting you fire while crossing a river, which can be useful for preserving speed. However, you can sometimes lock onto an orange talisman you’re going too fast to shoot at, so use them wisely.
Blue talismans are unlocked in the plateau before the final boss and are critical for traversing the last area. Unlike other talismans, blue talismans do not need to be locked onto. This means you can fire your bow and arrow at them without holding down the button, making traversing with them much easier.
Finally, there is one more hidden type of talisman: gold talismans. These talismans can be found by activating your spirit mask, but are only there to give you gems to get more flaps. Be careful, though! Looking for gold talismans, or anything really, with the spirit mask makes you unable to dash. So don’t let your hunt for gold talismans (or lightstones) stop you from zooming around the map with talismans.
High in the Sky
One of the best ways to navigate the plateaus of The Pathless is with the help of your eagle. This eagle can allow you to glide, letting you see the expansive views. You can also flap the eagle’s wings while gliding to soar higher.
Navigating via your eagle is a crucial skill in The Pathless. Gliding can help you reach regions faster than you otherwise might on foot. Flapping can be used to reach an area that might otherwise be impossible to reach. It is easier to find locations and spot lightstones and gems while high in the sky. For this reason, gathering golden gems to gain more flaps for your eagle is very useful.
Finding gems offers a synergistic gameplay experience. The more gems you find, the more flaps you get. The more flaps you get, the easier it is to find gems. While you will get flaps for vanquishing the boss in each region, you can gain more flaps by exploring.
Finding Your Way in the Pathless
There is only one map in the entirety of The Pathless, and it does little to help you navigate the world. Instead, you’ll have to hunt across the map on your own and actually find your way. This can be difficult if you’re not prepared for it.
Everything the Light Touches
During your time in the Pathless, you’ll have to stop corrupted Tall Ones by finding items called lightstones. These lightstones can then be used at towers to uncorrupt the Tall Ones. Lightstones are stored at various shrines and buildings throughout each plateau and can be tricky to spot. Unless you’re using your spirit mask.
Using the spirit mask allows you to see areas that glow red. A red glow in an area indicates that there is something undiscovered in the vicinity. This could mean that there is a lightstone in that area or that there is a gem puzzle in that region. You may not be able to immediately tell what is in the area, but these red regions are good places to start.
While using the spirit mask, you may also find some things that glow gold. Circular gold objects sometimes indicate lightstones, which are important to seek out. Gems can also glow gold but are usually somewhat rectangular.
Tracking lightstones across the map using red glows can be useful, but there are a few things to be aware of. First, keep in mind that the arena where you will fight the boss will glow red. This area is also where you will gather lightstones after the boss is defeated. Second, remember that tracking lightstones down will also have you discover a fair amount of hidden gem shrines. While you can choose to ignore these gem shrines, they will continue to glow red after visiting them. Be careful not to visit a location twice accidentally because you’re drawn by a red glow!
Towering Structures
While you’re navigating The Pathless, and especially if you’re trying to find all the lightstones, it can be easy to get lost. If you want to cut down on doubling back and retracing your steps, it can be helpful to take note of your landmarks. Each region has at least four basic features you can use to orient yourself: three towers and one boss arena. Once you identify the boss arena, you can use the towers to gain altitude and survey the rest.
While it is usually useful to climb a tower, each region has its own landmarks that might stand out. Some plateaus have huge skeletons left behind that can be seen from higher in the air. Other plateaus might have large mountains or distinctive shrines. Keep track of distinctive landmarks while searching in new areas, especially when you’re on the hunt for the last few lightstones. Using distinctive locations to keep oriented can be extremely useful.
Some structures may also be useful to simply see landmarks you haven’t noticed before. Some landmarks can be important but not glow from far away. If you see a structure you haven’t seen before, it might still be worth investigating, even if it doesn’t glow.
Pathless Boons
Collecting all of the lightstones in The Pathless actually has a purpose outside of being a completionist. If you collect all of the lightstones in a region, the Tall One spirit of that region will give you a boon that will make it easier to traverse the map. If you collect all of the lightstones you will unlock the extended ending of The Pathless.
While all of the boons are useful, there are a few boons that are well worth your time. Collecting all of the boons for Cernos, the elk spirit, will give you a boon that allows you to regenerate spirit energy passively over time. This means you’ll be able to sprint in situations you normally wouldn’t be able to, such as inside of buildings.
The boon from Sauro is also useful, but can be a bit of a double-edged sword. Sauro, the lizard spirit, gives you a boon that allows you to sprint faster after hitting a talisman. While this may not seem like it’s noticeable, it actually is… but not always in a good way. After collecting Sauro’s boon, I found times when I was going so fast that the talisman I locked onto was already out of range by the time I had drawn to fire. In other words, there are times when Sauro’s boon can have you traveling too fast.
While I also collected the boons from Nimue and Kumo, the snake and bear spirits, I didn’t find them as useful as the other boons. Both boons enhance gliding and flapping, but didn’t feel noticeably different. I found that the passive benefits from both bosses were actually much more powerful than the secret boon gained from gathering their lightstones.
Find Your Own Path
The central point of The Pathless is about finding your own path through the world and discovering things for yourself. So hop in!
If you’re interested in a game where running through the world without a direction is the point, and where puzzles and challenges feel like spiritual quests, you’ve come to the right place. With these tips under your command, you’ll be sure to blaze your own path through The Pathless.
