Will: Follow the Light review - a pretty Arctic adventure, but tedious puzzles leave it lost at sea

Will: Follow the Light is simply a cracking videogame name. Especially erstwhile it fades successful aft a fewer trailer shots of first-person striding crossed frozen wastelands and carving a wave-battered yacht done stormy seas. The enigma and peril of immoderate chartless journey, pierced by a beam of anticipation and determination, each conveyed successful 4 words and a colon.

Then you play the thing, and it’s chiefly astir a Norwegian bloke doing DIY successful sheds. Will is conscionable his name. Øh nø.

In the interests of reviewing the crippled that really exists, not conscionable the 1 successful my head, Follow the Light does occasionally instrumentality the signifier of a bracing Nordic adventure. Will, a grieving lighthouse keeper, sets disconnected seawards to way down his lad and dada aft they some vanish during a mudslide: a agelong and isolating trek crossed oceans and glaciers, with plentifulness of stops for soul-searching and puzzle-solving. In a Firewatch fashion, these puzzles mostly purpose for grounded, people diagetic labours, maintaining the Will’s-own-eyes position for astir his full voyage.

Within a mates of hours, sadly, it starts feeling similar much of a engaged Saturday of household chores – adjacent if your location does person immoderate beauteous coastal views. Partly, this is acknowledgment to Will’s fatherly plight being rapidly stripped of urgency. Minutes aft arriving successful the stricken town, it’s established that the missing lad is simply successful the attraction of Will’s dada – a spot of a bum to Will himself, though by each accounts an capable and loving grandparent – and that they’ve just... gone to his house? Even if it’s connected a neighbouring island, Will lad, that’s not a rescue mission. That’s picking your kid up from the babysitter, and hardly justification for the aggregate life-risking exploits that follow.

The strangeness of this setup is astatine slightest mildly balanced by a parallel crippled astir Will’s interior toils. Which, successful fairness, is handled much compellingly, adjacent with immoderate underdeveloped dips into the surreal. But still, the imaginable of a household reunion ne'er convinces arsenic a suitable driving unit for the game’s remaining six hours. It’s a compromise, an effort to rotation conscionable capable interest to get you sailing into the fog but not truthful overmuch that you can’t halt to perceive to immoderate audio logs and repeatedly undertake electrical attraction work.

These puzzles are the different crushed wherefore Follow the Light starts dragging. The immense bulk autumn into 2 categories: menial tasks completed by proceedings and error, oregon menial tasks wherever an evident solution is gated down a succession of other, smaller menial tasks. The erstwhile extends to specified tediously mundane jobs arsenic placing identical-looking pieces of solid backmost into a smashed lamp lens, and the latter... alright, enactment it this way. Early on, you’re asked to get a spark plug disconnected a shelf. I’m going to beryllium vague present truthful arsenic to not 'spoil' the 'solution', but it goes thing this:

1. Try the warehouse hoist controls
2. Check a fuse box
3. Find a fuse
4. Replace the fuse
5. Play the aforesaid fuse flip minigame you did 30 minutes ago
6. Talk to a mechanic
7. Walk outside
8. Play different minigame
9. Walk back
10. Play the aforesaid fuse flip minigame you did successful measurement 5, and besides present 35 minutes ago
11. Use the hoist
12. Retrieve the spark plug

Twelve steps! To get a spark plug disconnected a shelf! The queues astatine Norwegian B&Qs indispensable beryllium awful.

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/TomorrowHead Studio

I peculiarly resent this benignant of puzzle format due to the fact that it stretches retired the proportionality of clip that Will spends successful beige offices and grey huts, oregon traipsing betwixt them, erstwhile each of Follow the Light’s champion bits instrumentality spot retired successful the wilderness. Sailing, for instance, is simply a genuine pleasure. Your trade is rife with pleasantly tactile ropes and pulleys, and portion I’m not Bristolian capable to clasp distant connected method accuracy, TomorrowHead Studio person successfully built a tub that skirts the waves with a tangible consciousness of value and shifting heft. The moments wherever you’re riding the upwind distant from different batch of land-based puzzle bores, sitting backmost to admit the show of the skyline and the dependable of varnished wood slicing done saltwater, could person made a respectable no-walking walking sim by themselves.

Even backmost connected terra firma, taking Will further distant from civilisation tends to marque his crippled better. There’s an enjoyable, if somewhat indulgent canine sled thrust done immoderate mountains, and contempt the ennui-inducing handyman duties not wholly sodding off, the consequent Arctic venturing does amusement Follow the Light astatine some its astir contemplative and its astir visually arresting. Environmental creation standards are precocious throughout, successful fact, and I’ll concede that the interiors – arsenic often arsenic they herald different atrocious puzzle – are cautiously lit and often heavy furnished with signs of their erstwhile occupants: discarded tools, stacks of probe papers and such.

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/TomorrowHead Studio

It’s a shame that the remainder of Follow the Light isn’t truthful smartly detailed. There whitethorn beryllium a dash of Firewatch successful its slow-paced agrarian traversal, but Will isn’t animated astir arsenic expressively arsenic ol' Big Hands Henry. Most of the time, unless you’re looking down astatine his legs, he’s hardly animated astatine all. And with apologies to erstwhile STALKER dev Andrii Verpakhovskyi, Follow the Light regularly descends into Eurojank, lone without the accustomed charm oregon depth. Its subtitles lone sometimes lucifer the dialogue. Its autosave points are baffling. It tin bug retired and garbage to judge you’ve completed an objective, leaving you stuck until you load an earlier save. Which, spot constituent 2, mightiness beryllium conscionable earlier a cutscene oregon mandatory tea-making vignette.

I did yet powerfulness done to Follow the Light’s climax (also disappointing, for reasons relating but not circumstantial to the aforementioned not-actually-missing kid issue), and the lone happening that could tempt maine backmost is immoderate benignant of dedicated free-sail broadside mode. It’s frustrating: a crippled that’s truthful bully successful places astatine weaving that sensation of impetus, of virtually moving guardant with the upwind astatine your back, besides being truthful consenting to bog you down successful busywork. And I’d alternatively beryllium dashed connected the sharpest rocks successful Scandinavia than person to poke astatine 1 much circuit breaker.