WILL: Follow The Light Review – The Inevitability Of It All

WILL: Follow The Light tells an introspective tale of loss and love through its adventurous sailing and uneven puzzles.

All of this will end someday. My articles. This website. Hell, even humanity if we go to those extremes. Please bear with me. There is a lingering trauma that comes with this realization. We do not want things to end. It is in our nature. That is the main reason Dylan Thomas’ poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” resonates with me so much. Because I want to rage against the dying of the light. Exploring these themes introspectively, WILL: Follow The Light is an uneven narrative adventure that leaves much food for thought.

Will: Follow The Light Sets Sail

Set in an undisclosed Arctic archipelago, WILL: Follow The Light is a walking simulator. I reject this description, mainly because of how it has been weaponized to disparage games as a whole. There are also more things to do than just walking. This is likely the first surprise I remember. As protagonist Will, you are a depressed lighthouse keeper who sails and solves puzzles.

Granted, it might not sound like much, but once things get going, there is definitely more complexity than initially thought. Beginning on a stormy night in a cabin, Will goes through the usual rounds of making sure the island’s generator works well. Abruptly woken up in the middle of the night due to a power shortage, a staticky radio voice warns him of imminent danger: a thunderstorm caused a mudslide in his town. Because his son and father live there, he immediately goes back to search for them.

Stories Don’t End

WILL: Follow The Light has much more to say about its story than it lets on. Discussions of generational trauma, mourning, and feelings of inadequacy abound. Will used to have a wife. His relationship with his son is rocky at best. And his father, an alcoholic, let him down more times than he can count. Regardless, as he arrives at the devastated town, he finds out both his son and father are missing. He then embarks on a journey to find them. And maybe, even himself.

Graphically, the game looks astounding. Most of the time spent in-game is sailing. This means you can appreciate the gorgeously rendered sea at almost any point. And oh, is it breathtaking. Overall, the yacht in which you sail to the natural landscapes you explore is all eye candy. Only the quirky character models deserved a bit more attention. But they do the job of guiding you through certain sequences when needed.

Puzzled

Where WILL: Follow The Light falters is in its presentation of its puzzles. Or does it? I have a difficult time knowing exactly if a game has convoluted puzzles, or maybe I just didn’t have the capacity to understand them quickly. Some are rather intuitive, like closing and opening valves or moving a barrel with a crane. Others, like assembling a winch through trial and error, made me feel less than enthused.

Verdict

When all is said and done, WILL: Follow The Light shines in its particular moments of calmness while sailing through the icy waters of the north. Its pitch-perfect soundtrack, evoking Max Richter’s On The Nature of Daylight, leaves a tinge of melancholy. The story itself does not shy away from the inevitability of death. Some puzzles might leave something to be desired, but in the grand scheme of things, its message triumphs. If a life is well lived, perhaps following the light does not sound so bad.