Pathless Woods
Preview
A Chinese Extravaganza
EA SCOUT the last line of defense for buying on Steam's Early Access
by Howie Howard
previewed on PC
A Chinese Extravaganza
Pathless Woods is an open world crafting, resource gathering and survival game by game developer AniYa Games Studio. The Chinese developer headquartered in Guangdong, China also serves as producer for this Chinese-style sandbox extravaganza. The game focuses essentially on everything related to Chinese history and culture and it does so in an easy flowing manner. Pathless Woods is full of resource gathering, crop cultivation and the building of ancient Chinese designed homes and buildings such as pagodas and imperial palaces. I wouldn't mind seeing a Great Wall of China because every great civilization needs a Great Wall in order to fend off the evil rampaging marauders that will eventually come knocking at your door! Luckily you can have up to three friends help in a co-op effort or you can explore and defend by yourself...
The Land Of Guidance
Pathless Woods starts out in a place called the Land of Guidance and this is where players learn game basics. Everything, including character movement, how to jump, sprint, fight, etc, along with how to orient the camera angle to your preference is fully explained. This is all rather intuitive if you have played similar games in the past, but serves as the initial part of training. More important is learning how to perform single and bulk gathering, farming and building and that is because you will be required to do a lot of it in the game. So in the name of saving time it might be advantageous to learn how to do everything because there is a lot to this game. Also, crafting is on the menu of things to learn and that is something that will be used through out the game as you advance and are able to craft more advanced items and weapons.
After the Land of Guidance experience is completed then its on to creating the actual world that you and your friends will be using. You can either play by yourself or organize a co-op came with up to three other online players. Creating a game world consists of choosing a name for the world, choosing a randomized game ID number, (which appears to randomize the game world itself), set the number of players allowed in the world, (up to four max including yourself) and setting whether friendly damage between players is allowed or not. It is all a pretty simple setup process where one person serves as the game host and the other three players join in.
Strong Spirit, Or Tree Companion?
The next step is to chose a player character, male or female options are available and there are two characters ready for use in our Early Access preview code. There are spots for six other character types but those should come later in the full game release. The male character is named LiangPing and the female is QiaoEr. LiangPing has the physical trait "Iron Body" and "Strong Spirit" and these will allow him to have enhanced resistance to battle damage while being a stronger and better fighter. QiaoEr comes with two traits called "Tree Spirit" and "Tree Companion" and these allow her to have enhanced resistance to damage and better resource collecting skills. For purposes of playing the early access demo it might be best to have two of each character type because the four will be working cooperatively.
Getting deeper in to the game you will soon realize that part of the survival aspect of the game involves the need to keep hydrated and your stomach full of the multitude of various ancient Chinese delicacies that become available. If you neglect drinking enough water then stamina will decrease until you replenish. Not eating will cause hit points to decrease, so it is imperative you drink a lot of water and eat enough food!
Craft Your Own Chinese History.
Crafting is a big part of Pathless Woods and this is where you obtain the tools and other necessary items for survival in this massive ancient Chinese environment. Another important part of the game is the construction of a wide range of dwellings and all of them are patterned after historical Chinese architecture. One interesting aspect of the building construction part of the game is the items that you can craft such as furniture and other items that can be added to your dwelling and used. Since the game provides a day that turns in to night system it would be advisable to craft a light source or even build a camp fire because night time will lower your characters spirit.
There is just so much to Pathless Woods and all of it will provide a fun gaming experience. One of the game setting aspects that I enjoyed and which will give a replayability aspect to the game is how the friendly damage setting can be used in game. With friendly damage turned off then of course the four members of the game world will need to work cooperatively with each other. However, if the friendly damage setting is turned on then the four can split apart and create an adversarial atmosphere to the game. I'm thinking that this might be the most attractive way to play. Instead of just exploring and building great Chinese civilizations, you can instead have a nice little warlike setting!
Go For A Relaxing Walk In The Woods
Pathless Woods isn't just a repetitive resource gathering, farming and walk in the woods type of game with fighting, it is much more. Other activities can include special events, quests, being able to go fishing and the very appealing activity of exploring ancient Chinese ruins from history. There is a large amount of content contained in the game and you definitely won't become bored. The Pathless Woods environment is colourful and the music can be relaxing if you chose to just "go for a walk in the woods." It has taken developer AniYa Games Studio about seven years to get to the point of having this early access release and I'm hoping it doesn't take another seven years for the full release. There is no exact release date announced yet, so stay tuned!
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Recommend
There are no guarantees - but we'd bet our own money on this one. If you're going to take a chance with yours, odds are good this one will deliver.
