Spirit of the North 2 Review: A Quiet but Awkward Journey

by Luis May 16, 2025

There’s a quiet kind of magic in Spirit of the North, an indie adventure from Infuse Studio that trades combat and exposition for atmosphere and contemplation. You play not as a soldier or wizard, but as a red fox, just a fox, traversing ancient landscapes inspired by the sweeping vistas of Icelandic mythology. It’s a game that favors tone over mechanics, feeling over mastery. And while its serene world and haunting music can captivate in short bursts, its limited interactivity, janky controls and repetitive pacing make it feel more like a meditative screensaver than a truly satisfying adventure.

Spirit of the North 2 Review: A Quiet but Awkward Journey

From the moment you take control of your fox protagonist, Spirit of the North makes its intentions clear: this is not a fast-paced experience. There’s no dialogue, no text to guide you, no combat or inventory systems. The story unfolds visually, through crumbling ruins, mysterious glyphs, and environmental clues left in your path. Accompanying you is a spectral fox spirit, a shimmering blue entity who serves as both companion and occasional puzzle-solver. Together, you wander through abandoned temples, snow-covered valleys, and surreal dreamscapes, all lovingly rendered with a painterly visual style.

And there’s no denying it: this game is visually stunning. The Icelandic inspiration is clear in every windswept cliff, mossy rock formation, and aurora-lit night sky. The lighting design and color palette shift naturally from zone to zone, giving each chapter its own mood. The environments often evoke a sense of awe, like you’ve stepped into a living postcard. For fans of games like Journey, Abzû, or The First Tree, this is a world worth seeing.

Complementing the visual design is a beautiful and understated soundtrack. Sparse piano chords and ethereal melodies underscore your journey, never overwhelming the silence but enhancing its emotional weight. This pairing of sight and sound is where Spirit of the North is at its best, when it trusts the player to simply exist in the space, to absorb the ambiance, and to feel something unspoken.

But for all its aesthetic strengths, Spirit of the North falters when it comes to actual gameplay. The puzzles are simplistic and often repetitive, involving lifting glowing runes, lighting stone pillars, or following your spirit companion to a new area. While early segments feel fresh, later chapters reuse the same mechanics with little variation. Without dialogue or meaningful narrative progression, the repetition becomes more noticeable. There’s a sense that the game is stretching its limited mechanics a little too thin to support a full-length adventure.

Movement is also a mixed bag. The fox controls are mostly fluid, but the platforming can feel stiff and imprecise, especially when navigating narrow ledges or climbing tricky terrain. The lack of a clear objective system means you’ll occasionally get lost in the environment, unsure if you’re progressing or backtracking. While some players may appreciate this minimalism, others might find it more frustrating than freeing.

One of the game’s side goals, returning fallen shaman bodies to their shrines, offers a small sense of purpose and completion. These side objectives are entirely optional but provide moments of reflection and a deeper sense of world-building. However, they also suffer from the same repetitive interactions that permeate the main game.

The fox itself is undeniably charming. Its animations, from bounding across fields to tilting its head inquisitively, imbue it with personality despite the lack of voice or expression. But there’s little room for customization or evolution over the course of the game. The fox gains a few spectral powers, used to open paths or energize ancient relics, but they don’t change how the game feels to play.

Performance on Xbox is stable, though not flawless. Occasional texture pop-ins and long loading times can break immersion, especially when moving between larger zones. As mentioned before, the controls are a mixed bag, where platforming is often marred by glitches or awkward targeting. These technical hiccups aren’t deal-breakers, but they do stand out in a game that so heavily relies on mood and immersion.