Anyone interested in video games as an artform turly owes it to themselves to play this game. It's a one-of-a-kind experience that I find myself utterly enraptured by, which makes what I'm going to say next all that much more strange:

This is not a fun game.

If you're looking for a way to blow off steam by enjoying a nice video game for a while, Pathologic might not be for you. Between its bleak atmosphere, challenging and stressful gameplay, and often downright tedious mechanics, it's hard to say that Pathologic is "enjoyable" in a traditional sense. Certainly it's not a relaxinng or lighthearted game, nor is it even rewarding in the sense that most games are.

What makes Pathologic worth it is the way that the game settles deep into your bones, haunting you long after you close the game client. You will find yourself unsettled, burdened with a deep sense of paranoia as you try to unravel the mysteries of a town that defies all explanation. You will stare at the screen, wide-eyed and weary, engaging in those little gameplay rituals that ward off disease and bandit alike. And at the end of the day, you will come back for more, over and over again, because Pathologic is the kind of game that won't let go.

A great deal of Pathologic's gameplay is walking from house to house and talking to NPCs to progress the quest of the day along with scavenging from every bin in sight and bartering with the local kids. This is tedious yet in a way it adds to the bleak atmosphere of the game.

While the gameplay is tedious I still think this is worth the play, here's why:

It's the single most unnerving experience I've had, not in the sense of a horror game but it's just so bizzare.

All NPCs don't seem quite right in the head and it's hard to make sense of their dialogue which almost seem like riddles.

The music is equally bizzare and yet some tracks are strangely catchy.

The town itself is incredibly bizzare and the more you progress the more this is apparent, the superstitous locals murdering women on the street in their 'witch hunt', violent monster people lurking throughout the town (who play with the town's children) and huge mysterious buildings that the locals don't want you to enter.

It's well worth the 13 dollars simply for the strange experience and foreboding atmosphere, just keep in mind the gameplay itself is rather tedious and it may take a little while to really get into as the pace of the game at the start is (intentionally) slow to set things up.

TL;DR: If you're interested in games as an art form, or just want somethinking ♥♥♥♥ing weird; I reccomend it. The writing is excellent and puzzling, and the story is very interesting, along with a peculiar setting and cast.

What's really most tedious is much of the gameplay just consists of walking from point A to B. It's not a "walking simulator" in the slightest, because you've got to manage hunger, exhaustion, infection & immunity and scavange for materials and barter with townsfolk. Combat's there, but it's largely poor. But in between all the stat management you're usually walking across town to talk to characters to advance the plot. Sometimes it's fun; you try to avoid infected districts or find the most time efficient path. But it wears down on you after a while, and sometimes the game is so vague about your next objective you're forced to look it up.

Still, it's a one of a kind experience; a rough diamond. I played the Bachelor's scenario, and I think I'll wait on the remake to do the Haruspex and Changeling. I at least want to be able to appreciate the changes the remake will bring, so I'm glad I experienced a part of it in its original form.

Be prepared!

Oh God. Oh God. OH GOD. SAVE ME. They remastered it.

This may be the best game I've played in years. Strike that, this is the best game I've played in years. My background picture comes from this game. My facebook background picture comes from this game. I damaged my social relationships to a frankly alarming point by talking about this game to everyone I knew. I've skipped entire nights of sleep, just because I was too fascinated (my hands were literally shaking) by the approaching climax. I've let my beard grow wild and my eyes became those of a haunted doctor struggling against an invisible, inexorable enemy, just like the character I was playing. For weeks after completing it for the first time, I dreamt of mad bulls, of crows, of tunnels full of whispers in an alien tongue, of dark wells, of lies and treasons. Oh, the lies, the lies this game tells you.

But we'll get to that a bit later. First things first.



Pathologic is a 2006 russian game about an early XXth century small fictional town located in the middle of the russian steppe. A few days after the beginning of the game, the unnamed town is beset by a mysterious plague and everything starts falling into utter chaos. You are a healer and your goal is to discover the source of the plague and put an end to it.

You are given a choice between three characters : the Bachelor, man of logic and reason and professional doctor by trade ; the Haruspex, both learned in classical medicine and in the ancient local traditions of shamanism ; and the Changeling, a mysterious young vagrant girl who claims she can perform miracles. You have to complete the game as either the Haruspex or the Bachelor to be able to play as the Changeling (Devotress in the original version).


What you are reading is a review of the remastered version that came out on Steam on 29/10/2015, not to be confused with the remake of Pathologic, scheduled for November 2016. Aside from polished graphics, the main point of the remastered version is a way better english translation and a better voice acting. The original made quite some waves in Russia when it originally came out, but due to a very bad english translation and poor voice acting, wasn't very well-received abroad, and since it was the first game of the studio, they had very little at their disposal in terms of advertising. In any case, those problems are over now, thank Zeus, and Pathologic Classic HD is perfectly understandable and "enjoyable", so to those of you who played the original and think : "All well and good, Zyphilis, but I already bought and played this game a while ago, could you please get to the point and tell me if I should buy it again ?", I say yes. Do help yourselves to another slice of trauma.



Now that all that tedious stuff is said, let's get to the interesting part. Why is Pathologic unique ? What makes it so good ? What makes it "the best game you've never played" (quoted from a massive, outstanding review made by an RPS journalist named Quintin Smith, review that you should absolutely read, but only after completing the game because it's so full of spoilers) ?



Pathologic is ambitious. Impossibly ambitious. Its main theme is sickness and everything in the game revolves around it. If you've played The Void, another masterpiece by Ice-Pick Lodge, you know that the studio has a knack for deep links between gameplay and story (as root1902 and pointed out in his excellent review), and this is where I think Pathologic borders on pure genius : little by little, you will realise that what you initially thought to be a clunky gameplay design is actually a deeply thought-out device to make you feel uncomfortable, unwell - in a word, sick. Sick, exactly like the town you must save at all costs.

This is what the bleak colour palette, growing ever more sinister as the end nears, will make you feel. This is what the tough, unforgiving, clunky combats will make you feel : that you are a sick, desperate man/woman forced to fight for survival. Which you are. This is what I meant when I said before that while playing it I felt the same way my character did. This is why the first thing you see when starting a new game are the three main actors on a stage. This is why the very first people you talk to are two grim masked figures, more or less telling you this : "Welcome, delicious friend ! You will have a great role to play in this tragedy".

Do you see it ? Do you see how this is genius ?

Pathologic irresistibly draws you into its world and makes you a part of it. Little by little, perhaps without you even noticing, like a gentle cough in winter that just doesn't seem to go away, you'll start to have the diffuse but distinct, terrifying feeling that you must save this town not only to beat the game, but because by doing so, you'll save yourself somehow.


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(Work in progress)


So far I've played 2 of the 3 characters the game lets you play, the Bachelor and the Changeling. I'm planning of playing it (at least) one more time with the Haruspex, and then complete this review.
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In the meantime, do yourself some good (in a terrible, terrible way). Buy Pathologic and step into the storm.

Pathologic is a game where you have to choose between following up on promising information or breaking into a house to ransack it for food and medicine. it's a game where you either give a woman some medicine to ease her suffering even though she's terminal anyway or stab a little girl in the face with a scalpel and take some bullets from her body so you can postpone your own death. there's no "moral choices". there's no good or evil. everything's ♥♥♥♥ed and everything hates you and everyone around you is going to die and the few who don't are going to lie to you and use you and force you to do their ♥♥♥♥ for them.

you aren't going to have fun. if you're looking for a game that rewards you for doing good, look elsewhere. the most reward you'll get is not being as hungry after you eat some bread, which is important because otherwise you'll die. you get hungry, you get tired, you get sick, your clothes fall apart, your food goes bad, your weapons break, and as the people around you begin to die you scramble to stay one step ahead of the Plague. every second of every day counts, because it's a second you could be spending in any number of ways, and those seconds are seconds not spent doing something equally important somewhere else. all you can do is hope to survive one more day and find a cure, or an answer, or a reason to keep playing.

in an industry where the maturity of a game's story is measured by how many sex scenes it has or how many times "this choice will be remembered" pops up in the corner, Pathologic stands out as an awkward tumor ― awkward because, in spite of its deceptive appearance, it is in fact the only part of that body that has not fallen victim to the cancer.

Hands down, the best game I have ever played!

Pathologic is a very ambitious, very unique, genre-bending, medium-defining video game which does things no other game has done before or since. It is also devilishly vague, extremely difficult, incredibly slow and takes place entirely within one small greyish town over a period of about 30 hours. But as you go on you realise its incredibly slow pacing, its single greyish location, its trudging from one place to another are all essential to creating such an incredible atmosphere and game.

It tells the story of a small Russian town in the early 20th century steeped in tradition and built on the back of its meat industry. As you arrive in town, the leader of the town, who had spread propaganda of his own immortality is found dead from a disease known as "the sand plague". News of this plague then begins to spread throughout town and the game's excellent cast of characters all react in differing ways. The interaction with the characters is one of the game's greatest strengths, with every character acting in their own interests as the paranoia of the plague and the loss of the town's steady leadership begin to spread. The characters are generally really well written and easy to empathise with, which makes the political conflict in between them really intriguing and often you will be torn between different characters as you learn to understand their motivations and traits throughout the game. The story itself is also really rich and has some of the greatest twists and most intriguing characters in all of gaming.

But it's not the narrative which makes Pathologic great, so much as they way the narrative is implemented into the game. Never have I played a game which blends story and gameplay so well. This is for a couple of reasons: Firstly, as the story is told over a perpetual timeframe of 12 days, different characters will live or die depending on whether you complete the main quest on each day and your interaction with the characters may change their personality and how they try to react or reason with themselves over the inevitable demise of the town. This gives a sense of panic to your own actions as you know if you don't complete them in time certain important characters may die and you'll never find the end of the story. The player also has the choice of controlling one of three characters at the beginning of this game - all these characters have their own perspective of the disease and interact with the characters and narrative in an entirely different way. The other two characters who you didn't chose still take part in the narrative anyway and even more interestingly - you may come in conflict with them but never realise their motivation unless you play as the other character.

But more importantly than that is the survival gameplay and Pathologic has by far and away the best survival system of any game I've ever played. It features 6 main survival mechanics - reputation, health, immunity, hunger, exhaustion and infection and these survival mechanics are all balanced heavily against each other. By this I mean, if you are feeling hungry you might find a lemon or raw meat, these quench your hunger but may weaken your immune system. You may feel exhausted and need sleep but while sleeping you cannot eat or take medication so your hunger will rise and your immunity levels will drop. You may be out of food and need to attack innocent people to get some simply to stop yourself starving to death, thus causing your reputation to diminish etc. Trying to increase one of your survival mechanics may cause another one to decrease and so on, so there is this constant balancing act going on and make no mistake, balancing these survival mechanics is hard. But that is exactly what makes the survival system so great - it's always nagging away at you, never giving you a moment's rest as the time ticks on and it creates this incredibly stressful and emotionally dejected feeling which really allows you to experience the situation and unrest the plague has caused and allows you to understand the rationale behind the characters.

Though there are two other things which add to the brutal survival system which heighten this inescapable sense of tension even more: 1. the economy and 2. the changing nature of the town day by day. The economy was apparently based on the World War I economy of eastern europe to represent the panic of a disease ridden town and it is merciless. Money is scarce so trading is the general way you are going to get things, the only problem is that shop keepers have all the power and so basic amenities such as bread, milk and medicine all become ridiculously overpriced. At times you will have to hand over weapons, bullets and protective clothing all for a lemon just to stop yourself dying of hunger. The economy only gets worse as the days go on too and shortages of different things (food, medicine, clothing etc.) means they fluctuate day to day making it unpredictable as to what you need to hoard adding to the tension even more. There are other ways to find resources though - scavenging bins around town to find trinkets and bottles will allow you to help trade with the townsfolk. Sharp things can be traded with children (and that was one thing which made me feel guilty) for ammo and sometimes food and bottles can be filled up with water at the well in town and traded with drunks for medicine and health items. Thieves and murderers who come out at night and start you can also be killed and then robbed of money, lockpicks and resources and finally, you can break into people's houses and steal their final resources from their own home. However, it's incredibly disconcerting when you start robbing people's homes and the men of the house start trying to attack you to defend their home and it's amazing how much this got to me. That was perhaps the greatest and most creative aspect of the of the economy - the way it made me feel guilty. At the beginning of the game, I wanted to be as nice as I could, but survival is so difficult I was forced to break into people's homes and steal their things, even kill a couple of innocent men simply trying to defend their homes and it surprised me how genuinely bad this made me feel, but it's testament to just how immersive and beautifully designed Pathologic truly is.

The town's ever changing nature is also another factor which make Pathologic so immersive and so emotionally draining. It's a cliché of Pathologic reviews to use this sentence, but: much is talked about in open world games in trying to create a "living world", whereas Pathologic does the opposite: it creates a "dying world" and by doing so creates this incredibly lively and riveting environment. Day by day, different areas become infected - different characters are introduced and react through different events. Riots begin to happen, military men with flamethrowers come in to stop the infection spreading. The sand plague becomes more and more potent as the days tick by and the town, its economy and its people begin to become more infected and more panicked as a result.

And this unyielding tension is only added to fantastic ambient soundtrack and the drab but fitting art design which all creates this amazing and utterly unique atmosphere.

Pathologic isn't just about building atmosphere therefore by reaching a certain point in the narrative and then a cut scene happens. Pathologic isn't an interactive film, or an interactive tv show, it's interactive theatre - it's about watching a slowly decaying town in front of your eyes and trying to survive yourself within that! For every minute I spent with this game I felt the muscles in the pit of my stomach tighten - it made me feel extremely tense, guilty and dejected at just trying to survive. It is one of the most emotionally draining experiences I've ever had in just about any art/entertainment medium.

This is a positive review about one girl and her love for Pathologic. First, let me tell you how I came across this game. In 2005 I was at the market in Minsk, and while passing by the video game kiosk i was stopped in tracks as my eye caught a glimpse of the original Mor Utiopia (Pathologic) CD design. I approached it and ask the salesman what the game was about. The way the two men who worked there described me left it zing in my head.. so I bought the game. i did not own a PC because I was poor. But.. I bough tthe game anyway, because then th enext goal was to find somewhere to play it. I was obsessed with the idea of this world, I memorized every word on the cover. Still, I was only able to launch it when I moved to Canada in 2006. Launch would be a stretch because the second CD did not work... Lets fast forward to 2007. I managed to get a hold of a new copy (relative brought over). It FINALLY launched! I loved every second of it, the story was rich...then PC got upgraded to Windows 7, which was not supported by the security verification system that came on the CD (support up to Vista)...So I couldn't play anymore. :/ A year after that I re-bought it again on Gamers Gate because I still didnt play as the girl and I felt like I missed out. (played for her, it was amazing, obviously. *tears of joy*). Then a few years later a remake was announced and I was SO. STOKED. (still am.) Then last week i was checking the upcoming games and saw this Classic HD edition... SO I said "well ♥♥♥♥, am I not going to support my favourite developers because I already bought this game so many times? Hell no". SO, after buying Pathologic 4 times... maybe I can now finally complete the third and last character! :) I also bought this game for 2 other people because everyone deserves to know how great this game is. ANyway, I am really happy with this release. I will keep buying Ice Pick Lodge games, even if I have to do it over and over again.

(I have completed a full playthrough of the original pathologic before its HD re-release. It was a personal favorite game of mine.)

Overview:

Pathologic's effectiveness as a survivial-horror game relies on the passage of time; gathering enough food and supplies for yourself is trying to begin with, and as the plague takes hold in the town, the price of food and medicine skyrockets as districts fill with plague vapors, rats, and the shambling sick. It's impossible not to feel the invisible noose of desperation tightening around your chosen character's neck.

As for the game's story, if you manage to keep yourself alive, you're going to uncover some wild stuff. The town this game is set in is steeped in cults, competing factions, and world-changing magic, but none of it is spelled out for you at the start. Magical Realism is a good way to describe it, which just can't be said about many games out there.

Each of the three player characters can learn things the other two can't. There are many unique NPC's to interact with and learn about the world from, and all of them treat each player character very differently. Many will tell half-truths and try and manipulate you to suit their ends. There is branching dialogue and quests may resolve differently based on your actions.

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Reasons you might love this game:

- A wonderfully original setting with interesting characters and lore.

- A sense of slow, creeping decay that many horror games aren't patient enough to pull off.

-A barter economy born of desperation: rummage through trash cans for baubles to trade children for, swap your only weapon for a loaf of bread, loot the houses of infected districts for items at the risk of contracting the Plague...you'll be making hard decisions constantly under time pressure.

- A strange but very well excecuted soundtrack.

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Reasons you might not like this game:

-Combat is very clunky.

-You'll be doing a lot of walking from place to place with not much happening between besides trading with people or visiting a store. (Unless its a plague district or nighttime, when you can run into knife-weilding bandits.) There is no sprint button.

-If you don't like games with a lot of text. Characters have a lot to say.

- If you aren't careful, you can exhaust your supplies and money and be completely ruined well into the game. Keeping rolling saves / quicksaving often is highly reccomended.

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All in all, if you are looking for an unrelenting, unique experience, this game is truly an unpolished gem that is well worth your time for its story and atmosphere alone.
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Gameplay tips from someone who has played through the game:

- 'Q' brings up your quest log. ' L' brings up letters you've received that will give you hints on what to do. They often show up at the start of a new day. 'P' brings up your status screen.

-If one of your Bound (Also called Adherents) dies at the end of a day, you didn't complete the day's main quest and will be locked out of all but one very grim ending to the game.

-Look through trash cans whenever you can. Junk can be traded to children for invaluable supplies. Bottles can be filled up with water and traded to drunks for bandages and tornaquets.

-Equip clothing and use drugs that boost your immunity when going into infected districts/houses. It may be the difference between catching the Plague (which can only be cured through two very rare items) and remaining healthy. Take protective clothes off when you leave; they lose durability when being worn.

- Even with your best efforts, you're gonna probably gonna get the plague. The higher your infection bar, the faster your health will drain away.

In Soviet Russia, the game plays YOU. And this is not a joke.
To play or not to play Pathologic is depend on your attitude to the games. If you want a light snack with hyper-modern graphic - then come along, it's not your choice. But if you're looking for a something different than 99% of games - try it. This game became a legend in Russia, it have a wide community of fans. A dismal story of a small steppe town, striked by the unknown disease, that told by a three different points of view. And when I say "different", I mean exactly what I said - different in most high, metaphysical point. The game is very unwelcome, but once you delve into it, you can't exit. Or should I say - you cannot escape?