Pathway, developed by Robotality, released back in April to mixed reviews. I saw the game’s cool reception on Steam and decided to bypass it in favor of other games on my to-play list.
A few weeks ago the game’s publisher, Chucklefish, reached out to me about Pathway’s latest update, “Adventurers Wanted,” and how it introduced many new updates and changes to the game that the developers implemented based on players’ feedback over the past half-year.
Some of the changes outlined were 18 new character abilities, improved enemy A.I., new story events, a more rewarding loot system than what was present previously and new combat areas.
But, if you’re like me and are just playing Pathway for the first time, you have the luxury of first experiencing the game with all of these quality-of-life updates. Lucky us.
Pathway is a set of rogue-like adventures where players direct a team of adventurers through 1936 Northern Africa and parts of the Middle East. Think of it as an Indiana Jones turn-based roguelike — that was my elevator pitch for Pathway, when my friends asked about it.
Players start out by choosing a trio of adventurers who each have their own unique skills and stats. The trio is then sent out on a mission that spans a game board-like level where the adventurers travel from spot to spot encountering random events at every stop. Each transition from spot to spot costs one fuel, and if players run out of fuel, their heroes must walk and take damage with each move. Basically, if you run out of fuel and don’t immediately find more, you’re done for.
Your jeep cannot carry enough fuel to get you from the start of the mission to the final destination without refueling, so players must scavenge for supplies and fuel as they play. Considering that the only fuel depots in 1930s Northern Africa are held by Nazis, you’re going to have to fight for that fuel.
Combat can happen during any turn. Unless you move to a merchant spot, there’s a good chance you’ll be fighting Nazis. There are other combat opponents, besides angry Germans, but I won’t spoil those surprises here.
Combat is turn-based and allows each character to move and use action points that provide offensive or defensive options. Each character can use a ranged weapon to simply shoot at opponents, or one of their unique abilities to control the combat.
For example, one character I used could set up a defensive stance that stops enemy movement in a designated region. If an enemy entered that area, my character would fire a warning shot that stopped the enemy in their tracks. I could use this ability to control a zone and allow my other characters to move to a better position or heal up if necessary.
What I liked about the combat was that while it is turn-based, Pathway doesn’t lock you into a specific order of which character to move when. When it’s your turn you’re free to move any of your characters, or attack with them, in any order. This opens up the creative possibilities that are more-restrictive turn-based system would be unable to provide.
If I had one character standing between an enemy and one of my other characters, I could shift the sandwiched character out of the way, have my other character fire a shot at the enemy and then move them to cover beside the character I previously moved. I could then use the previously sandwiched character to heal the character I just moved beside them.
That sort of dynamic opened up the gameplay so that each encounter felt unique, beyond the unique scenarios themselves, and I had the freedom to solve the combat situations as I wanted to. This freedom, packaged with the overall brevity of combat scenarios, helped retain my attention — and enjoyment.
Each level is tied together with a narrative that it would be generous to call interesting, but it does try to make the experience cohesive. After attempting to stick with the story for the first mission, I realized that it wasn’t incredibly vital to the game as a whole and it was easy to dismiss it altogether.
What was more interesting to me were the bit-sized events that took place with every location. After playing through three complete missions, I rarely encountered events that were repeated, apart from some story-related segments that I had to replay though when I failed them.
As someone who can easily shrug-off a turn-based game by my second-or-so hour with it, I found myself playing Pathway for longer periods than I intended to. The game has that “one-more-turn” lure and that coupled with the rewarding gamble of not knowing what the next move will bring makes Pathway an easy recommendation to make.
Beyond the lack of interesting narrative, players who are more experienced with turn-based games may find Pathway too easy or simplistic. There’s very little complexity to the game and while that worked in favor of retaining my attention, players looking for a game that’s a bit less casual may be disappointed with the experience they find within Pathway.
While I can’t speak to how Pathway has improved since its launch, I can say that right now, Pathway is a great, casual strategy game. All the work the developers put into improving the game has made it one I would have difficulty believing people were lukewarm about at launch.
Pathway was reviewed using a retail copy provided to Epic Brew from the publisher.
