It is inspired by several versions of the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood, and by folklore tropes and conventions in general, but set in contemporary times.

Even the story narratives are not typical for a game, as explained by the developer, "We are not story-tellers in the traditional sense of the word.

The character will interact and an image will appear on the screen, indicating what has been unlocked; every item a girl encounters in the forest shows in some shape or form in Grandmother's house, and some objects open up whole new rooms.

Depending on the girl, doors are scratched, or furniture tipped over and broken, or strange black threads are draped across everything.

Instead of ending with Grandmother, the music crescendos as the player enters a final surreal room before falling down, and things black out again.

Images flash on the screen, featuring the girl being attacked by her Wolf, before the player is relocated back in the apartment.

"[20] Tim Martin of The Daily Telegraph cited The Path as a recent example of a "vigorous experimentation with techniques of narrative."

Once you leave the path you'll find innumerable creepy yet beautifully rendered experiences to take part in, but you're never really given any guidance as what the point or object of all of it is.

"[22] Mike Gust of Tap Repeatedly called The Path "a sort of anti-game", "a game turned inside out in service to something deeply personal, human and disturbing".

While there’s spooky woods, abandoned playgrounds, creepy dolls, and many other familiar themes of horror, these offer no scares.

"[24] Steven Poole of Edge opined that the game is "a supremely boring collection of FMVs with pretensions to interactivity that very quickly wears out its joke about control and becomes a tedious slab of nihilistic whimsy," yet noting that the game features a "lugubrious, Lynchian surrealism" and that "in its ornery and precious way, The Path is a triumph of atmosphere, coming much closer than the cruder shocks of games such as Silent Hill or BioShock to a dramatization of what Ernst Jentsch and Freud analyzed as the "uncanny" in literature.

An in-progress, alpha-stage version of The Path was nominated for Excellence in Visual Arts after being exhibited at the Independent Games Festival in 2008.