On occasion they’ll open up doors for you, but they’re just a collectible really. In fairly short order you’ll unlock Spirit Form yourself and in doing gain the ability to activate pressure pads with your corporeal form and send off your spirit to do your bidding, usually activating a standing stone just in the nick of time.Īs well as finding your way to the ultimate source of the pestilence, you’ll awaken shaman spirits by finding wooden staffs and reuniting them with a nearby desiccated corpse. It has the effect of destroying plague tethers which are the source of the pestilence that has turned out the northern lights. After a little while you’ll unlock Spirit Bark, which is just what it says. These have the effect of opening doors and raising water levels amongst other things. Practically this means you can get spirit energy from blue glowing flowers and transfer it to standing stones and ancient murals. So says the trophy description anyway and that’s literally all the narrative we have to go on. We don’t know.įor reasons, you end up infused with pure ancient energy. That’s not a bad thing at all, as it would’ve been far too easy to make this yet another open world brawler where you fought off evil arctic hares or something. As a result, in the opening stages at least, Spirit of the North is very much a contemplative affair. You see, there’s zero dialogue or plot exposition here. She’s a female spirit fox and uses her feminine wiles to seduce you.Īt least that’s the interpretation you can choose to take. Eventually you’ll find your way into an icy catacomb and awaken the titular Spirit of the North. Though initially you’ll have little idea as to what you’re actually supposed to do. So for that alone, we understand why you’re a more typical red fox.Īfter a while running around gloriously realised snowdrifts, you’ll realise that you’d best get on with the matter at hand. The context would make more sense if you were playing as an arctic fox, but then you’d be veering very close stylistically to the rather more plot driven Never Alone. You’re a red fox which makes the contrast on white snow all the more stark. Admittedly it’s helped by the fact that snow is beautiful at the outset.
We didn’t review the original PS4 game so this version came to us with fresh eyes just in time for our having got a PS5.
Originally released last year on PS4 and earlier this year on PC, from what we can tell, this is the original PS4 release with the higher res PC assets. Novemin PS5 / Reviews tagged Fox / infuse studio / north carolina / raleigh / spirit of the north / vulpine by Ianįrom North Carolina-based two man developer Infuse Studio and publisher Merge comes Spirit of the North: Enhanced Edition.