Pathless Woods
- April 2, 2024
- AniYa Games Studio
- 30h median play time
Get on Steam"Pathless Woods" is a crafting and survival game set in a mysterious ancient Chinese landscape. Build structures, explore with friends, and brave elements and threats while uncovering secrets and discovering treasures. Marvel at the detailed environments and NPC interactions as you forge your path in this immersive experience.
PC
Windows
Reviews
- The game features a fun and cozy survival sim experience with charming graphics and a unique food and crafting system that encourages exploration and creativity.
- Building mechanics are highly praised, allowing for a lot of customization and flexibility in creating structures, which adds to the overall enjoyment of the game.
- The game has a strong community and regular updates from the developers, indicating a commitment to improving the game and adding new content.
- The game suffers from performance issues and bugs, including glitches that can disrupt gameplay and a lack of controller support, making it less accessible for some players.
- Many players find the game overly complex and demanding, with a steep learning curve and mechanics that can feel tedious, particularly regarding food spoilage and resource management.
- There are concerns about the balance of gameplay, with some quests being too easy while others present a sudden spike in difficulty, leading to frustration.
- grinding52 mentions
- 2 % positive mentions
- 2 % neutral mentions
- 96 % negative mentions
The game offers a balanced mix of farming, crafting, and survival elements, making it engaging without feeling overly grindy. Players appreciate the streamlined mechanics and the ability to set their own pace, although some may find the farming planning a bit chaotic. Overall, it provides a cozy yet challenging experience that encourages exploration and creativity.
“Not too grindy for single player.”
“Farming planning is also a mess.”
“You don't even need to try to survive; abundant food, auto-farming resources, the system is nicely designed, though it's just more of a cozy social game than a survival game.”
“I hope there will be a way to just repair armor, weapons, tools, etc. to make it less tedious.”
- gameplay50 mentions
- 20 % positive mentions
- 72 % neutral mentions
- 8 % negative mentions
The gameplay is characterized by a unique blend of survival mechanics, including detailed hunger and physique systems, alongside crafting and building elements that encourage creativity. While players appreciate the depth and variety of mechanics, some have noted issues with AI behavior and endgame balancing, as well as a steep learning curve for newcomers. Overall, the game shows promise with regular updates and a fun exploration experience, though it requires further polishing and content expansion.
“Love the hunger and physique mechanics.”
“Survival contains mechanics that encourage you to plan your meals for maximum nutritional benefit and bring clothing appropriate for the climate.”
“It's got a lot of smart new, unique mechanics to the genre.”
“I got about 35 hours of gameplay before the poor endgame balancing became annoying.”
“There are promising mechanics, but as it's in early access, there's a lot of polishing needed.”
“There's no end goal; the gear and gear crafting have excessive mechanics that feel meaningless, as if they're just in the game to add extra text without any real impact.”
- graphics50 mentions
- 32 % positive mentions
- 62 % neutral mentions
- 6 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game are generally praised for their charming and cute art style, which enhances the overall experience despite being less detailed and somewhat simplistic. Many players appreciate the scenic environments and unique aesthetics, although some have noted that the graphics engine requires optimization for better performance. Overall, the visuals contribute positively to the game's appeal, making it enjoyable and fun to explore.
“A solid survival/farming game with nice base building options and charming graphics.”
“The cute art style is refreshing and reminds you games are meant to be fun and not taken so seriously.”
“All of it very scenic and organically woven into the world with sights that become memories for their unique aesthetics and beauty of the land.”
“First, the graphics engine needs serious work.”
“I have a GTX 1060 6GB and an i5 8600K, and my game is at 30fps with 'normal' graphics enabled.”
“I'm not big into graphics, but I did want to be able to have somewhat nice visuals as I play too. Maybe if it gets better I will repurchase, but as of right now I think I'll wait and see.”
- story32 mentions
- 13 % positive mentions
- 78 % neutral mentions
- 9 % negative mentions
The game's story is perceived as disjointed and lacking depth, with early quests being too easy followed by a sudden spike in difficulty that frustrates players. While some appreciate the potential for character development and world interaction, many find the quests boring and disengaging, expressing a desire for a more cohesive narrative and additional content as the game is still in early access. Overall, the story has potential but currently feels underdeveloped and random.
“I hope that the storyline can be extended and there's lots more quests along with the gameplay.”
“The character interaction with the story is coming along nicely, I think.”
“The way the world moves is beautiful, the fighting is great, the story is great, how the world affects you and the crafting... overall this game is great and should be a standard, in some areas, for survivals.”
“The game just seems so random, and whatever the producers did to gain health/stamina and complete quests doesn't really have a connection to why players have to do it in order to increase their health/stamina or finish the quests.”
“The quests are boring and disengaging; there's a lot to explore but it feels like there's minimal to discover, and there are still bugs where you won't get key blueprints at the beginning of the game.”
“First few quests were too easy, and then there was a big jump where one quest made you die too many times.”
- optimization26 mentions
- 8 % positive mentions
- 77 % neutral mentions
- 15 % negative mentions
The optimization of the game has received significant criticism, with many users reporting performance issues, bugs, and poor graphics optimization, particularly on the Steam Deck. While some players have experienced smooth gameplay, others with high-end systems have reported severe frame drops and limited view distance. Overall, the game is seen as needing substantial optimization improvements to enhance accessibility and performance.
“If these two aspects—graphics optimization and control simplification—are addressed, Pathless Woods could have a bright future, as it would be more accessible to a wider audience.”
“So far so good, played it for a few hours and no performance issues at all.”
“Can't recommend based on terrible Steam Deck optimizations and controls.”
“I'm loving the game so far but I'm experiencing lots of performance issues at times (even having a decent device - RTX 4070 8GB with 32GB of RAM).”
“- Still not completely optimized and playing the game where I can see the grass/foliage just gives me less than 20 FPS.”
- stability8 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The game exhibits significant stability issues, particularly with buggy AI mechanics that can lead to characters becoming unresponsive and problems with the lock-on system. Additionally, audio glitches are prevalent, with missing sound effects for various actions, which detracts from the overall experience. While the game has a charming theme and engaging mechanics, these stability concerns need to be addressed for a smoother gameplay experience.
“The AI mechanics are buggy; some will do nothing even with items on hand, and teleporting with a following NPC caused it to get stuck on top of a signboard and do nothing, even if you build a platform for it to walk down.”
“Currently, the lock-on system is a bit buggy, but I'm sure that will get sorted out soon enough.”
“The audio is very buggy. If you play as the first female character option, she doesn't have any footstep sound effects, while the male character does. There are no sounds for actions like watering plants, scooping water, drinking, walking, or cutting plants, and audio matters a lot to me.”
- music6 mentions
- 67 % positive mentions
- 33 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The music in the game is praised for its beauty and suitability, enhancing the relaxing atmosphere of the gameplay. Players appreciate the fitting soundtrack that complements the stunning landscapes, though some express a desire for more musical variety.
“Beautiful landscapes and music, great for a relaxing downtime gameplay!”
“Music is nice and fits well.”
“Beautiful landscapes and music, great for a relaxing downtime gameplay!”
- replayability4 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 50 % negative mentions
Players find the game's replayability promising due to its potential for future expansions, including new playable characters, regions, and systems. The existing framework suggests a wealth of content that could enhance the experience, making it feel like just the beginning of a much larger adventure.
“It's pretty obvious where the game will add more content, like more playable characters, a livestock system, additional tiers including iron, more regions, possibly new follower types, and new resource usages. It's such a good start that the potential here seems limitless.”
“The game has a solid foundation with the promise of future updates, which makes me excited to replay it and explore new content.”
“It's pretty obvious where the game will add more content, like more playable characters, a livestock system, additional tiers including iron, more regions, possibly more follower types, and new resource usages. It's such a good start that the potential here seems limitless.”
“I believe this is because they have slots in the game for a variety of future playable characters, and those characters will have skins as well.”
- emotional2 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Players find the emotional impact of the game particularly poignant, noting that it is heartbreaking to confront and kill the adults that charge at them, highlighting a deep sense of conflict and sorrow in their actions.
“It's heartbreaking to kill the adults that run at you.”
