The Path (in English)

I've rarely seen a game as dark and despairing, as sad, as The Path. When I played it last night, I was torn between a real artistic and aesthetic admiration and a feeling of unease, an almost real fear, in the face of the dangers threatening the little girl we play. The screenshots don't really do justice to the game, which is presented by its creators, and quite rightly so, as being first and foremost an experience. It's true, it's very slow-paced, and this can bore those accustomed to games where there's "something to do", something to win, and where things move in all directions. You won't play The Path if you need a dose of nervous excitement. Quite the opposite, in fact. The slowness of the game contributes to its cathartic or compassionate side, I don't know how to put it. Since the aim is to take the little girl for a walk in the forest, until she meets her wolf, her death, there's nothing positive or even simply neutral to look forward to in the game. We're here for a sacrifice.

I don't know if it's to do with my personal history or with age – maybe at thirty you're less tolerant of anything that evokes suffering, because the prospect of death, real death, your own death, becomes more and more real – but I'm having more and more trouble with horror in general. I remember starting to watch Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left one night. A film that begins with the rape and murder of two young girls, which I knew. I didn't even get that far, skipping it after five minutes, feeling incapable of watching a massacre, even a fictional one. I'm getting old.