I got this game a while back in a horror game bundle and just kind of set it aside in my Steam library for a long time without knowing much about what it was. I figured it was a typical walking sim horror game and I could play it some time when I needed a game that wouldn't take too much effort and could just enjoy for the story for a few hours. The game is third-person, despite first-person typically being the standard for this type of game, but otherwise I'd say for the most part it is in fact the walking sim I expected. Though Through the Woods does a few things I find conceptually interesting, I mostly found the game fairly boring and even the more intriguing elements ultimately fell flat.

First of all, the game does boast a potentially neat setting with a gorgeous Norwegian wilderness to run around in, full of mountainous woods and a lovely lake. Though the story does not span a long period, you do get to wander around this area throughout several different times of day and night, casting a different aesthetic on its vistas. The game weaves in Norse mythology and culture into its setting and story quite heavily and you'll find plenty of related architecture, symbolism, and mythology scattered through[out] the woods, despite the game's grounded opening.

The story I found kind of hit-or-miss. I don't want to give too much away, but while I'm sure it wouldn't work for a lot of people, I found it a refreshing change of pace that you play as a fairly unlikeable protagonist in a sympathetic position as she quickly is forced to try and track her son down after seeing him seemingly abducted. Though the present story does not develop much until the end, much of the backstory is developed through your character's internal monologue while she reflects on her broken family and concern for her son. This structure worked okay, but it started to feel a little too formulaic with how you knew after each of the first few zones you'd be getting a few lines of backstory very obviously leading toward further development, rather than the story feeling more organic. And while the eventual revelations are somewhat interesting, the surface story and background story don't feel like they overlay very well at all. Further, a lot of the final revelations require listening to shadow people talk while you just stand there for a while, a lazy narrative device that never really works for me. The ending sequences feel in some ways surprising, but mostly because of how out of left field it is.

The real nail in the coffin for the game for me is that it is just plain boring. There's very little gameplay with just a couple versions of hide-and-seek with threatening mythological monsters, but these encounters vary from overly easy and frustratingly difficult with one enemy that runs extremely fast and if your flashlight isn't on it almost instantly, will kill you even if you draw the light on it for a few seconds. But beyond that, there are virtually no puzzles and the entirety of the gameplay is running from A to B. The areas can be rather large but there's no particularly interesting traversal whatsoever, which really killed for me a lot of the appeal the pretty setting could have had. There's also not much sign-posting which may be intended given the forest setting, but it really just made an already dull game feel padded with its worst content of being lost just running around. There are some notes you can find off the (very lightly) beaten path, but I soon found myself wanting to just get to the next section to progress the game and story. Despite the occasional interjection of story and monsters, I felt like I was just wandering around for a good 80-90% of the game and really didn't enjoy very much of that aspect.

While I have a couple conceptual points of praise for Through the Woods, I can't recommend the game very highly, even for fans of this genre. Perhaps if you're just the type who is excited to consume any games with Norse settings and mythology, you may get more out of it, but even those elements didn't do much for me. I think some of the things I liked could've made for a pretty neat game if there were just more to it and some decent gameplay to the experience, but instead we're left with a walking sim that is fairly boring even by my low standards for the genre.