WILL: Follow The Light — Xbox Review

WILL: Follow The Light is a first‑person, story‑driven adventure about a lighthouse keeper, a missing son, and a storm that never really leaves. You play as Will, a widowed lighthouse keeper in the Nordic seas, whose routine night on duty is shattered by a radio message: disaster has hit his hometown, and his son Thomas is missing, last seen with Will’s estranged father. From there, you’re pulled into a voyage across rough waters and harsher memories, juggling sailing, puzzles, and introspective character drama.

It’s a strong premise: grief, generational damage, and a parent trying to reach a child, emotionally and literally against the backdrop of brutal weather and unforgiving seas. The problem is that WILL keeps drifting between being a sailing sim, a puzzle‑centric adventure, and a walking sim, without ever fully committing to any of them. When it clicks, it’s gripping. When it doesn’t, you feel like you’re stuck doing chores in a very pretty storm.

Moment to moment, WILL is a mix of:

• Walking sim exploration: wandering towns, camps, interiors, and lighthouses, talking to people, picking up clues, and triggering memories. It feels semi‑open but is ultimately quite guided.

• Puzzles and tasks: finding codes, unlocking safes and machines, assembling equipment, doing DIY repairs, and completing small, grounded tasks like collecting rainwater or prepping the boat. These are often simple but can be vague, with objectives that tell you what to do but not clearly where or how, leading to a lot of aimless wandering.

• Sailing segments: the standout sections. You manually handle the sailboat Molly—adjusting sails, steering through storms, and feeling the weight of the sea. When the game lets you just exist on the water, it’s immersive and tense in a grounded, physical way.

The issue is repetition and padding. Objectives stretch out, backtracking piles up, and later chapters lean into loops that feel more like busywork than meaningful progression. There’s a clear foundation for something special, but the pacing and structure keep undercutting it.

Visually, WILL often nails the mood it’s chasing: storm‑lashed seas, snow‑capped mountains, lonely lighthouses, and battered coastal towns. The Nordic setting feels harsh but beautiful, and the boat sequences in particular can look properly cinematic when the waves are towering over you.

The audio design does a lot of heavy lifting, howling winds, creaking rigging, and a score that leans into melancholy and tension. Voice acting, especially for Will, is strong enough to carry some of the weaker writing. Technically, though, bugs, continuity issues, and rough edges can break immersion just when the game is starting to get under your skin.

The game often feels like it’s padding itself out by stretching simple tasks into multi‑step scavenger hunts, forcing backtracking through areas you’ve already combed, and slowing the story to a crawl just when it should be tightening. The result is a game that feels like it should be a tight 3–4 hour emotional journey, but instead plays like a 7–10 hour trek with long stretches of downtime.

Pros:

• Strong premise: grief, family, and generational trauma framed through storms, lighthouses, and a desperate voyage.

• Immersive sailing: manually handling the boat in rough seas feels tense, physical, and memorable.

• Atmospheric setting: Nordic seas, devastated towns, and lonely lighthouses create a distinct, moody world.

• Emotional peaks: later story beats and some memory sequences land with real

  emotional weight.

Cons:

• Pacing issues: slow start, saggy middle, and an ending that several reviewers found unsatisfying or unfocused.

• Repetitive structure: lots of backtracking and task chains that feel like chores rather than meaningful puzzles.

• Vague objectives: unclear directions and small, unhighlighted items can lead to frustrating wandering.

• Technical and tonal roughness: bugs, uneven writing, and an identity crisis between sailing sim, puzzler, and walking sim.

WILL: Follow The Light is one of those games where you can see the great version shimmering just beneath the surface. When you’re out on the Molly in a storm, or piecing together Will’s fractured relationships, it feels like the emotional, cinematic voyage it wants to be. But repetitive tasks, uneven pacing, and a story that loses urgency keep it from fully landing.

On Xbox, it’s a flawed but interesting nautical drama: if you’re patient, into walking sims, and drawn to messy, grief‑soaked family stories, there’s enough here to make the journey worthwhile even if the light at the end isn’t quite as bright as it could’ve been.

XPN Rating: 3 out of 5 (SILVER)

WILL: Follow The Light is available now!