I pride myself on honesty, but this will be the most transparent review I’ve ever written for a game. My journey with WILL: Follow the Light wasn’t long, but it was arduous. It was a path punctuated by frustration, boredom, and a lack of vision, and then, in an on-theme moment of enlightenment, it started to yank my heart into an emotional turmoil.
When I started playing WILL: Follow the Light, I scoffed at the bugs, marvelled at the continuity issues, and quite literally fell asleep (more than once). But by the time I closed out my five-hour adventure, I had tears welling in my eyes, and I said to myself I wouldn’t end up like Will, the game’s protagonist.
This is how WILL: Follow the Light went from a total dud to a cathartic revelation.
WILL: Follow the Light Starts Fairly Slow
I didn’t have too many expectations going into WILL: Follow the Light. I knew it was an adventure game about a man trying to get home to his lost son amid storms, inclement terrain, and environmental threats. I knew it was a puzzler, which I usually dislike, as my capacity for logical process is slim when it comes to games.
I said this would be transparent.
When I installed and started playing WILL: Follow the Light, I found myself plunged into an ocean, staring down vast waves, and screaming out my son’s name. Where was Thomas? How would I ever find him? Why did I care?
Truth be told, I didn’t. I just love The Perfect Storm and loved the mirroring of the boat facing down impossibly tall rogue waves in the middle of a violent storm.
The game opened up, and I found myself at home, in a town devastated by a brutal mudslide that had all but wiped away my house, and my son had disappeared, taken somewhere unknown by his grandfather. I would come to learn that Will, the protagonist, rather masterfully voiced by Ollo Clark, had a fractured relationship with his father and was less than enthused about his having taken Thomas away.
In WILL: Follow the Light, you spend the first half an hour or so solving basic puzzles, preparing a ship for a grand voyage to locate your estranged family, all the while discovering fragmented memories. You assemble parts of your vessel, secure supplies, and learn how to pilot a sailboat, all before heading out to the great beyond.
It was during these earlier, slower segments that I fell asleep playing WILL, and later, during some trickier puzzles, I became so frustrated and demotivated that I uninstalled the game. Then, minutes later, I reinstalled, desperate to settle Will’s mission and hop back aboard the boat.
For those with a love for all things nautical, it’s pretty neat. You don’t spend a lot of time in the boat, the Molly, but the time you do spend there is focused on trimming sails, controlling the boom, navigating threats in the water, and heading into the cabin to study your collectibles and plot the next stage of your journey.
It’s light work, ultimately. WILL: Follow the Light is less about the boat and more about what you discover when you’re literally following the light.
Before long, things take a rather ethereal turn, and you’re gifted an almost magical lamp that lights your way, allowing you to unlock deeper, darker memories, solve more challenges, and reveal hidden items. This becomes your best friend, and with this, you unravel Will’s emotional upbringing.
This is where it becomes an utter heartbreaker of a title. I won’t spoil a thing, but our would-be hero has had a very hard time of things.
WILL: Follow the Light Makes You Question Parenthood
The title of this WILL: Follow the Light review is a pretty tricky one. I’m not a bad father, but this game made me realize that I could be much better.
Without giving too much away, you learn that Will has a broken relationship with his young son, Thomas, which worsened after the death of his mother, Ila. In WILL, Ila is voiced by the marvellous Cissy Jones, a BAFTA Award-winning actor and a presence in some of the most legendary games ever made.
While I’m on the topic of voices, I’ll say that the audio spread in WILL is also pretty sumptuous. The soundtrack is subtle but works perfectly with the scenes that unfold, the ambient effects are accurate, and the soundscape when you’re working around the boat is immersive enough.
In this game, that relationship is scrutinized, as is your past with your own father, both of you lighthouse keepers, far too busy with work to spend time with your child. This makes up the crux of WILL: Follow the Light, as you are forced to push aside all other responsibilities in the desperate search for your child.
Along the way, you visit your childhood home, contend with arctic conditions, face off against whales and polar bears, and solve puzzles, some of which are downright ghostly and spooky. On the surface, WILL: Follow the Light looks pretty good. There’s a nice visual palette, the character models aren’t too shabby, and there are enough small details for the player to pick through.
There are notes, tapes, carved boats, and model planets to pick up as you explore the game, incentivizing deeper exploration, but ultimately, you can finish WILL: Follow the Light in under five hours.
There’s an achievement for just that, actually.
The reason I connected very strongly with WILL is that I also have a young son, and I, too, spend too much time working. I’m away quite a lot, and despite my best efforts, I always know I could be doing more. My son’s middle name is also Thomas, which added a further connection to the game and Will’s mission.
I think if he’d shared my son’s name, this game might have broken me.
I cannot accurately sum up the gravity of this game without spoiling the ending, so I won’t. I will just stress that the final sequences of WILL: Follow the Light will have you staring, shocked at your screen, trying to figure out if what you think happened happened. Then it all becomes clear, and it hits you like a wave (no pun intended).
In the end, WILL: Follow the Light came together quite nicely. I had almost avoided giving it the time of day early on, having experienced a few bugs (outlined by the team as known issues), been hampered by some puzzles (poor brain), and not being interested in where the story went.
By the time the game wrapped, I was left questioning my own capabilities as a father, wondering what I’d do if I were in Will’s shoes, and my son went missing, whisked across a vast distance by my father, whom I hated. It boggles the mind, and it makes you look inward for a rather long time.
WILL: Follow the Light Review Verdict
WILL: Follow the Light will set you back $24.99 and offers a maximum playtime of around eight hours. Given the nature of the story, there’s almost no replayability, so it’s up to you to decide if that investment sounds worthwhile.
What I will promise is that WILL offers an emotional journey of self-discovery and internal reckoning. It’s not overly complex or cinematic, but it takes the harrowing concept of a father searching for his missing son and puts you in firm control of piecing together the path required to locate him.
The relatively low-budget title is from a studio that hasn’t made anything before, TomorrowHead, but this debut is worthy of awards. I can see it nominated for trophies like the BAFTA Games Awards’ Games Beyond Entertainment category. This is an important game that deals with grief, estrangement, and heartbreak, and it does it while teaching you a thing or two about sailing a boat.
Knowing now how it all wraps up, I’m desperate for more people to experience WILL: Follow the Light, and for that reason alone, I can firmly recommend it to all comers.
WILL: Follow the Light is out now on Xbox, PlayStation 5, and PC.
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WILL: Follow the Light
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WILL: Follow the Light
Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
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