Pathways into Darkness

Pathways into Darkness

Pathways into Darkness is a first-person shooter adventure video game developed and published by Bungie in 1993. Players assume the role of a Special Forces soldier who must stop a powerful, godlike being from awakening and destroying the world. Players solve puzzles and defeat enemies to unlock parts of a pyramid where the god sleeps. The game’s ending changes depending on player actions.

About Pathways into Darkness in brief

Summary Pathways into DarknessPathways into Darkness is a first-person shooter adventure video game developed and published by Bungie in 1993. Players assume the role of a Special Forces soldier who must stop a powerful, godlike being from awakening and destroying the world. Players solve puzzles and defeat enemies to unlock parts of a pyramid where the god sleeps; the game’s ending changes depending on player actions. The game features three-dimensional, texture-mapped graphics and stereo sound on supported Macintosh models. Pathways was critically acclaimed and won a host of awards. It was also Bungie’s first major commercial success and enabled the two-man team of Jason Jones and Alex Seropian to move into a Chicago office and begin paying staff. In the game, players fight various monsters as they explore the pyramid’s halls and catacombs. As additional levels are unlocked, new weapons become available, including machine guns and grenade launchers. The player can absorb a certain amount of damage, but once their health reaches zero, they must resume their progress at the last saved checkpoint. Through the use of the yellow crystal, players can converse with Previously Living Sentient Beings or \”PLSBs\”.

Conversations provide players with puzzle information, strategies for defeating monsters, and story background. Additional plot elements can be revealed by an attainable radio beacon, enabled by an early early in the game. The most favorable endings are achieved by leaving the pyramid with a beacon for at least twenty minutes before the game ends. Forgetting to set the bomb to explode at any time past the awakening of the god results in Earth’s destruction. The device’s detonation before the player reaches a safe distance in a pyrrhic victory results in a minimum distance of 20 minutes for the game to go off for the player to go to the next level. The in-game clock runs constantly during gameplay, except when in conversation; if the time progresses past the point at which the sleeping god wakes, the player loses the game and the game is over. The manual gives a starting point by mentioning that all dead people respond to \”name\” and \”death\”, by giving their name and describing how they died, respectively. Before the game begins, the player character’s parachute fails to open. Awakening hours later, the character finds almost all his equipment inoperable.