Pathologic 2

4 раза бросал игру, максимум дойдя до 3 дня. Хотелось всё успеть, быть хорошим и выиграть, но для этого надо делать всё и сразу: бегать по квестам, торговать, искать еду и деньги на одежду, готовить лекарства, лечить. Везде остаются хвосты, какую-то информацию ты уже не узнаешь.

Вот кажется, я наконец освоился и знаю что делать, но тут игра вводит новые безумные условия. Я снова на дне, снова не понимаю, как дожить до вечера, и в ужасе выключаю игру.

В этот раз я начал прохождение с намерением проиграть, но выжить. Закрыть глаза на мораль и делать только то, что мне выгодно. И, внезапно, я втянулся. Переломным стал момент, я умирал от голода и мне пришлось ограбить дом, убив всех, кто стоял на пути. Я выжил, и в итоге прошел игру, даже не на самую плохую концовку. Это был незабываемый опыт.

Если говорить именно про геймплей, то тут есть три большие проблемы:
1. Игра толкает к сейв-скаму. Многие механики зависят от шанса (например, что пациент умрет). А ещё каждая смерть игрока навсегда делает прохождение труднее, в том числе на старых сейвах. И при этом у тебя перед носом всегда есть простое решение - загрузи сохранение. Не повезло? Загрузись и брось кубик еще раз. Потратил ресурсы на диагноз болезни? Можешь загрузить сейв и сразу дать лекарство без диагноза. Сейчас тебя убьют? Срочно загружай сохранение, иначе игра станет сложнее.
Игра хочет, чтобы ты принимал последствия неверных решений, но у тебя всегда есть возможность склонить чащу весов в свою сторону сейв-скамом. Это портит впечатление и не удовлетворяет.
2. Можно легко словить софтлок, если не следить за ресурсами. У меня такое случилось после заражения чумой. Ресурсов нет, лекарств нет, здоровье на нуле. Переигрывать придется несколько дней. Мне пришлось гуглить, как можно вылечиться, потому что игра никаких решений не предлагает.

Что интересно, обе эти проблемы можно решить: после смерти восстановите здоровье и голод, а взамен заразите трех NPC чумой. Тогда и загружать сейв будет не так охота, и выбраться из ситуации будет возможность.

3. Последние 3 дня ничего не происходит. Тебе дают лишь пару квестов с беготней из одного конца город в другой. Кайф первых дней как раз был в мультизадачности. Квестов куча, и надо правильно построить маршрут, чтобы выполнить как можно больше. 11-й же день - полное уныние. А в награду, в одной из концовок тебе предложат еще раз прогуляться по городу и поболтать со всеми персонажами. Спасибо, я лучше объемся таблетками и спрыгну с моста (я не шучу, я так и сделал, чтобы сразу оказаться в Театре).
Игру можно было уместить в 8 дней, и играть было бы только приятнее. Мне хочется перепройти игру еще раз, но от беготни уже тошнит.

Ну и по технической части:
1. Из игры невозможно выйти, вместо этого она зависает и крашится. Это какой-то позор.
2. Где-то точно есть утечка памяти, потому что если долго играть, игра вылетает.
3. Несколько раз ломался скрипт и я не мог общаться, торговать и лечить. Загрузка не помогает. Тоже неприятно, приходится перезапускать игру.

Не смотря на всю кривизну, игру все равно рекомендую. Первые 7 дней были чистым удовольствием.

Great game with a deep and interesting mystery. I only wish that the performance was a bit better.

a very nice and challenging game so far but the only bad/frustrating part is when you get stuck at a certain point and have to go back to a past load save(making you re-live the entire plot again untill you get to the point where you messed up). yes it can be solved by straight up not messing up but sometimes things change unexpectedly (some could be expected because they do make sense) and eventually be the end of you. kinda makes me feel like cheating when i load up the past save loads but thats the only solution i got.

I have no idea how to summarize my feelings for Pathologic, it might actually be impossible to be both brief and accurate in conveying the depth of the experience. I didn't know games could be like this, and I have not yet found another game that comes close. The level of narrative investment and immersion in the world is as emotionally affecting as your favorite film. Except that it is nothing like watching a film. For one, there are no cut scenes. I'd compare it to reading a great book, as it does contain a lot of reading and imagination, but there is nothing passive about it. No, Pathologic can only do what it does because it is a video game. The game mechanics are what break you open so that you can properly emotionally engage with the story and themes. It is infectious, humbling, terrifying, relentless, cozy, bleak, heartwarming, and hilarious. It wants a lot out of you, it kind of wants your soul, and offers so so much in return.

I am driven to complete the game not because I want to win, or to find out how it ends, or to just get that next sweet hit of dopamine from stumbling across some toast in the trash. Yes, all of those things compel me to play on, but at some point, the game's goals became my goals. I want to save the Town because it's a special place that deserves saving, and no one else will. Abandoning the game feels like weakness, callousness, treason, and simply not in character. And that is a once in a generation gaming experience.

Now that the dramatics are out of my system, can I just say how incredibly gorgeous this game is? I'm blown away by the artistic quality from top to bottom. The rest of the experience certainly adds to my appreciation, what is a good painting if it doesn't mean anything to you and all that, but I think it's the most visually stunning game I've ever played. I could not possibly list (and it would be incredibly boring to read) all of the beautiful details, from the rendering of the environment and characters, to the inventory images and icons, to the art within the art, but I very much advise you to stop (where its safe) and smell the roses (miasma) whenever you can (the handful of spare seconds you get).

The game has a lot of potential. Just way too much mystery and too much reading, so it's not for me. It's rare I skip the game rather than finish the game. I can't refund it months after buying it; I have had a lot going on and couldn't play it sooner, which is fine because it was on discount. Definitely not a game I'd chill on xD

Really loved this reboot of the original Pathologic. Same wonderfully weird, and tense experience, but now with a ton of polish!

This game was incredible. Truly a masterpiece in gameplay elements, story telling, and a unique world.

The beginning is a helpful tutorial, but pretty soon the entire world opens up and you can actually feel the weight of your actions, even before the sh** hits the fan. From the big arc of the story to the little details, these show this game was carefully crafted (for example, as a developer I was impressed with how they managed to integrate all the inside places with the outside places). Save scumming is also something that may not behave as you expect.

I've never played anything like this before, and was blown away. 10/10.

This game is for people with pleasant lives so I'll halt for now, DO NOT play if your life is unpleasant, take care of yourself then come back to it, you already have enough on your plate, emshen...

This game has made every conceivable aspect of my life worse in all measures.
10/10, absolute masterpiece.

Você não joga esse jogo, o jogo joga você. pessoas que gostam de não saber o que fazer nem como fazer vão adorar jogar isso. Muito injusto e não te perdoa fácil. Relevando tudo isso, a história é uma das mais bem escritas que eu já vi em um jogo, se não a melhor, muito imersivo e interessante. recomendo 10/10

its just.. good. the world and the writing is just incredible. absolutely a hard game and not for everyone but if you can get around the difficulty a real gem is waiting. came to this game after playing Disco Elysium months ago and looking for a game that is scratching a similar spot in the brain and while totally different gameplay, it is.

I will start off by saying this game is not for the weak and I don't mean that ironically.

This game can push you to your upmost rage and laugh at you and mock you while it does it but if you can learn the mechanics and understand the way the game is working against you it will become one of the best story telling experiences you will have. I picked it up and put it down a great many times but once you reach the end and see that all the pain, rage and gamer tears you pour into this game will be worth the reward and the fact that the game is always changing when you restart if on a new playthrough and the chances of one of your wards dying on a roll will keep each playthrough fresh and rewarding as you cannot experience everything in one playthrough organically but it is encouraged to play this game blind as it will give you the best and most atmospheric experience as you learn the town and its secrets one by one all on your own.

10/10 Will be suffering through the sand plague again and again gritting my teeth until the end.

Buy on deep discount. Pretentious and self-absorbed, badly optimized, playing optimally involves save scumming (some side quests are a waste of time and you are better off reloading your save and ignoring them), the actual gameplay is pretty much inventory management. I don't feel that the story is profound enough to make it worth it.

The game's draw is its uniqueness, but there aren't more games like this for good reason.

Everything about this game offends my senses. The comically bad facial animations when characters actually have spoken lines. The constant fog in the distance hiding how ugly this game is. The nonsensical dialogue choices for every person you encounter. The bland boring environment. Thankfully I bought this game on sale, but will be returning it anyway.

This is a game that tested my limits. Not the limits of experience, skill or thinking. Just patience. By far this was one of the most pointlessly infuriating Unity 5 garbage slogs I have ever encountered. I have played a lot of immersive sims and this is so mid and boring I couldn't even laugh how bad it is, I could only hope this game was over quickly.

I don't want to get into the analysis of what's bad about the game. Everything. Optimisation sucks, Unity 5 is really obvious and fake with 0 immersion, completely braindead mechanics choices (Ah yeah because a doctor who is respected everywhere will have everyone hate him if he accidentally punches a guy once when trying to fend off a guy with a knife, totally.) and many many many more. The writing is childish, posh and hits like a sack of wet napkins, the NPC's are faceless and I couldn't care less about their semi esoteric drivel garbage. I solved how to make the medicine on day 7 and just was so sad that there are 5 more days of this horrible experience of running from point A to point B listening to my guy pant with occasional savescumming or door loading cheesing mechanics to scavenge for meaningless garbage. This is how not to make a game: the game.

God I am genuinely so upset I wasted 21 hours and money on this when it feels like an extremely long demo. I spent 85% of the time running and just being bored and the rest just talking to randoms. No actions, no brain activation just listening to random boring shit. Save yourself time and money and go play something else. I imagine most of the good reviews are just from people who have this as first experience into the genre, but I have played a lot of stuff like this and its genuinely the worst game I have played in this category.

The only two good thing about it was I like the premise and the steppes look nice and I like steppes :) That's it :D

I cannot recommend Pathologic, not because it's bad, but because of it's surreal and intense narrative, that I simply do not seek in a game. This isn't a game, it's an intense story, with no control by the player. Overall, not for me.

This is a great game that is not for me. I played about 30 minutes of it and I saw the absolute brilliance of the game. The setting is unique, the way the story is told is engaging. It's strange and odd and very much made with love. I can't stop thinking about this game.

I also found it to be a bit heavy for what I want to play after putting the kids to bed in my ~hour or so to play games. Were I a younger man (or a much older one) with the time to put into it? I could see it being a real good experience.

If you want a *story* to experience, something absolutely different from anything you've played? Hell yeah, grab it! If you need a game to chill with before bed? Maybe not so much.

Amazing game, amazing story, amazing atmosphere. It might be a bit confusing at first since nothing really makes sense, but as you go deeper into the story, it all starts to click.

You really get to feel what it’s like to struggle during an outbreak like this. You have to make sacrifices and tough choices to survive, and the game captures that feeling so well. It felt real, it felt human...

Now, you are an actor, go on stage!

It's a solid game, the music is nice, the atmosphere is nice. The game is rather confusing, and it will be on your first play through. Especially when you don't know where to go and most towns hate you. Yeah, I don't know. The one thing that I don't like is how NPCs can hit you five feet away from you. Why is this a thing, I don't know. Hungry depletes fast. You can't trade because everyone knows you and hates you, which means lack of food. Keeping your first up is easy. It tries to be difficult but it does it in an unrealistic annoying way.

Game just needed some tweaks and such. It is an underrated game. If I can go back in the time, I would've ignored this game and bought something else. Don't trust what you watch. That's what I did.

5/10 for me.

Disturbing, unforgiving, and depressing. Hard to play, and impossible to succeed. Seriously, as a video game, it's HARD.

A detailed and divided fantasy world forms an incredible setting for this unique tale. Prepare to cry.

WTF is this game. Will I ever heal anyone. OR will I continue to be murdered in the plague ridden streets by knife-wielding maniacs?

whoever doesn't enjoy a nice evening of dumpster diving with a mercilessly overflowing exhaustion meter after a long day at work doesn't have a soul
In all seriousness though, this is a much more polished game than Classic - certainly less broken, survival does feel like a struggle sometimes. If you're wondering if you can play it if you haven't played the 2005 game - you can and you probably should as it's more approachable and easier to comprehend. They're two different games though, even if they follow a similar narrative in a similar setting.

People talk about how difficult Pathologic is; and yes, that is true. But I've definitely played harder games. What I think people are actually referring to when they talk about its difficulty is moreso its unfairness. Unlike many other difficult games, Pathologic 2 can take any victory away from you in an instant, it offers you certain success only to give you certain defeat, and is all around smug about it the whole way through. I can understand why some players wouldn't like that, and certainly if that doesn't sound like something you'd like to spend your leisure time doing, I don't begrudge you one bit. But for me personally, Pathologic 2 was one of the best experiences I have ever had in a video game. If you, like me, are the kind of mad person to enjoy this kind of thing, I cannot recommend Pathologic 2 enough.

Время не ждёт. Время неоднородно. Каждый грядущий день будет короче минувшего. Дни сокращаются, и сокращаются ночи. Конец уже ближе, чем кажется.

Truly a unique experience. I think this is the first game I've felt miserable almost the entire time, but loved every moment of it. I'd watched a couple videos on the game before so I didn't go in blind, but its amazing that I still felt completely lost

There are so many good moments, scripted and unscripted. This game is so unfair, it feels satisfying when you manage to succeed at something despite that. I both hate and love it, and I can't wait to both hate and love Pathologic 3 just as much.

I got soft locked because of the infection mechanic where I would keep dieing over and over again every time I reloaded the save and I would booked my ass to the pharmacy where they sold no healing items and I had nothing to trade with the nearest npc for any healing before I would die within my 2 min time period and im too lazy to reload a previous save thats like an hour long restart... great game tho.

It's like a walking simulator except instead of walking on a nice beach, or through a forest, you walk through the colon of a man with prostate cancer and then get mugged. And also your mugger steps on your testicles and gives you covid.

Best game I have ever played after Disco Elysium. I can't even call it a game. It is a unique experience, one of a kind. I believe this game is not for everyone. If you enjoy reading every sentence of beautifully written dialogues, Dostoyevsky-like philosophical questions about life/death/religion/sin and complex game mechanics that replicate the hardship of a real life experience - this is for you.
Huge recommendation - don't watch/read anything. It will affect your gameplay. Just try it for 2-3 hours and reach Day 2. If it is for you, you will be absorbed. If it is not, forget about it - it's just not for you and this is perfectly fine.

Not an easy game, but once you get it, you want to play it again and again.

Beat me up. Absolutely demolished. Crumpled and tossed into the gutter. Hydraulic press'ed. Made into a fool in front of all who ever loved me. Left broken on the side of the road. Mangled my corpse. Havoc wreak’ed. Chewed me up and spit me out. Came at me like a wreaking ball. Laid me to waste. Wiped me off the map. 10/10 best game ever.

very well written story line,and realistic game play

great world, love the art style, punishing but even dying over and over has a story to it

A note to anyone playing this, you might feel like you've been thrown into the game with no clue how thinks work at first. But that's the point, because all of Day 1 is basically a playable tutorial. Listen to what people tell you, think about what that translates to as game mechanics, and everything will start making sense

2ez. Why program multiple response options in the linear dialogues?

Pathologic 2: A Game That Breaks You And Remakes You

Some games are difficult. Some games are punishing. Pathologic 2 is something else entirely. It doesn’t just test your skills—it tests your limits, your values, your very sense of self.

From the moment you arrive in the plagued town, you realize this isn’t a story about winning. It’s about enduring. The air is thick with rot, the sky is heavy, as if mourning. The town itself seems to breathe in pain, its streets lined with fading footprints of those who won’t see another sunrise.

You are not a hero. You are not here to save everyone. You are here to survive—and survival is cruel.

The game gives you just enough to scrape by, but never enough to feel safe. You will starve. You will grow weak. You will look into the eyes of the dying and know that you cannot help them. And the worst part? You will get used to it. It forces you to choose—who do you help? Who do you abandon? How much of your own humanity are you willing to sacrifice just to see another day?

At first, I fought against the system. I tried to play perfectly, to plan, to strategize. But Pathologic 2 doesn’t let you be perfect. It watches as you stumble, as you break, as your convictions crumble under the weight of starvation and despair. It strips away that illusion, forcing you to accept failure as an inevitability. It made me confront my own stubbornness, my own selfish need to "get it right." And when I finally let go of that, when I accepted that suffering and compromise were my only paths forward, the game transformed into something else entirely.

The town is alive—not just in its decaying streets and whispering corners, but in the weight of every choice you make. The faces you pass today may be corpses tomorrow. The laughter of children is a rare sound, swallowed by the hush of grief. The hunger gnaws at you like a rabid dog, and the exhaustion drapes over your body like a funeral shroud. Every meal you steal could be someone else’s last. Every step forward feels like trudging through the ashes of a world that no longer wants you in it.

The world doesn’t revolve around you, and it never did.


Playing Pathologic 2 feels like drowning, yet somehow, you keep pushing forward. And when it finally lets you breathe, you realize you’ve come out the other side—changed, but never whole.

I can’t say this game is for everyone. But if you’re willing to suffer, to embrace the unknown, and to truly feel, it’s an experience unlike any other.

Made me want to kill myself so fucking difficult and annoying and still makes me come back every time to play it finally got past day 1 on my 3rd playthrough had this game in my library for a year before i finished it

Played this game on Intended Difficulty, and I have to say, hardest game I have ever played. If you are looking for a hardcore survival experience with alot of variables then this game is a must play. Be warned though, dying many times and reloading many saves should be expected.

Immersive in a way few games have ever achieved. Buggy, broken, frustrating and hypnotizing in all the ways only Pathologic could be. One of the best games ever made

This game was above and beyond anything I was expecting going into the experience as an avid Pathologic Classic player. It is equally as challenging as the original, but provides some changes that are welcome and make the experience more palatable! I'm glad to see more of a fanbase for this title than it's former.
Pros:
-great storyline
-interesting characters + lore
-fluid controls
-engaging gameplay
-new mechanics like stamina and boat rides, which improve overall movement without taking away from the time management stress
-nerfing the house theft option, making resource farming more challenging! (It made the original easier in comparison)
-fluid map, making following the game and awareness of options easier than ever before!

Cons:
-exhausting experience (high tension with doing many tasks + time management)
-Haruspex is the only playable character, offering less routes and objectives (the original offered the Bachelor, Haruspex, and Changeling - it felt like 3 different runs of the same game). The replay value is lessened from this. Not so bad considering the short but sweet self-contained Marble Nest dlc.
-personally don't like the lack of option to skip Theatre plays on subsequent runs of the game (the longer ones drag).

As a true Pathologic fan, I got everything I was expecting and more from this revamped version! I will always love the intensity to such a game, while also offering great lore and characters to make the experience enjoyable overall. Perfect modernised version of a cult classic! It's a difficult game, but I highly recommend it for those who are up for the challenge.

9/10

A brilliant game. An experience of its own. You have to play it to understand it.
(P.S: Sometimes NPC's stop interacting with you. You have to exit the game for them to start interacting again)

Bizarre and Brutal, it's an impossible sell for everyone but its unique charm absolutely has appeal

First I'll state by saying that you do not have to have played the first game to understand anything here, it's something of a reboot/remake that focuses on only one of the routes from the original game which is fine with some elements of being an actual sequel.
Point is, it's completely fine to start with this one.

Onto the main stuff, this game's one of the more notable ones I've played, incorporating time-management and survival gameplay to make an experience that made me never want to waste a second or slip up and waste precious resources.

It may sound basic but it's when things go wrong that Pathologic shines

Without going into spoilers, depending on certain factors like the day, decisions made, people neglected, etc.
The townsfolk get put in danger, all those people you get introduced to can and probably will die without intervention.
The hard part is managing your resources, like weapons, food, medicine and most assuredly... Time!

With each passing day, times grows shorter and shorter, at first you may not notice it but as the days go on, you'll find that the game ain't lying. Your hunger depletes more rapidly, you find longer events may not be worth the time investment, and each day brings new problems that helped me understand the general gameplay systems by force.

Things only get worse as you'll need resources to make it through the day, and as the days go on, things get worse.
Stockpiling is a massive boon but can be hard in practice, looting houses is a mixed bag of results for a variety of reasons but bartering can get you far.
Trading for items and figuring out what people want can be the difference between life and death, make use of it.

Life is unfair, and that's (mostly) alright

Despite the survival gameplay being harsh and time being hard to manage (you can't be everywhere and do everything), things can be relatively managable, but sometimes the game will decide to mess with you.
Sometimes people are put in danger or straight up killed based on chance, while there's stuff you can do to mitigate that, odds are you'll run out of luck eventually and have to live with it or savescum but please don't.

While certain interactions will change, you're never really outright punished for a characters death, life goes on and you will make it to the end so long as you persevere, but there is one lasting consequence you might end up cursing, and that's your own death.
Outside of day 1, the town remembers how many times you've died, regardless of reloading, and will punish you as it sees fit.
From lowered max health to worse loot, it can only make your life harder, but it's NOT the end of things.
The punishments start out tame and like I said, the town remembers, while it's mostly the punishments that will remind you of your death, there are other reminders that are decently interesting to encounter.

Speaking of the town

An incredibly odd mix of rustic environments colliding with almost cult-esque themes.
Most of the houses look normal, if a bit copy/paste, but then you'll spot structures that defy the laws of gravity, massive towers meant to house the work population and the scenic steppe belonging to the local tribe with it's "odd" people that isn't even taking into account their culture and exploitation.

This is the thing that ultimately got my attention, and while you'll see a lot of what it has to offer pretty quickly, there's still info waiting to be uncovered which makes it interesting.

But there are some downright bad comments to make

Combat is quite frankly just bad, it's incredibly easy to stunlock most enemies to the point where I would say my preferred weapon was my bare fists, but realistically it was my legs as running away is mad easy. Considering how combat is frowned upon by the local population and knives/guns can drain my health from full to nothing in a second, I'd much rather just leave it alone whenever possible.

While I think the death system is very cool, there's little reason not to reload before you think something goes wrong as, when you die, it just boots you back to your previous save anyway, so you might just be in a very similar spot that lead to your death without any escape other loading even further back.

While I did want to keep the town population alive, I'd be lying if I said I cared for even half this cast, as most times I try and interact with them they just don't have any dialogue, usually needing an event to trigger conversation, this makes wandering around the town feel downright pointless at times, especially as certain places become empty as people start dying.

Thirst feels kind of pointless, it's rather easy to maintain and to my understanding, never decreases past a certain threshold, making it the only meter you don't actually have to manage for survival outside of stockpiling your sprint duration.

If you're interested, go into it with the expectation that this is something different and will use its difficulty to try and sell a setting instead of appealing to a larger demographic

It's hard, but fair, and personally I thought the experience was well worth it.
It might be boring, stressful or annoying at times but it works FAR more often than it doesn't.
If you're looking for something different, would highly recommend.

got to day 3 and starting bragging about how the game wasn't that hard and I got the hang of it. then day 4 happened. boy was I wrong.

The existential aspect of the game is shocking, I cannot remember on top of my head any game that was leaking into reality!: I mean this illusion of reality that is written on your tunnel of ego walls. I came to a fискing town, I am a doctor, I am not here this isn't happening, what are you talking about people? So, now I should live here to understand, no, no I am not buying, you are stuck in your superstition, I am not following you at all, let me do my blооdy job, please! Thank you. I am here to help. I do believe I am helping. Medical higher education I brought to help and... wait, is this child living at the cemetery, are you... bi bol zamyn gar, ene garaar bi zamyg chiglulekh bolno.

Въeбaл морфия, въeбaл твирина, спать!
Въeбaл морфия, въeбaл твирина, спать!
Въeбaл морфия, въeбaл твирина, спать!
Въeбaл морфия, въeбaл твирина, спать!
Въeбaл морфия, въeбaл твирина, спать!
Въeбaл морфия, въeбaл твирина, спать!
Въeбaл морфия, въeбaл твирина, спать!
Въeбaл морфия, въeбaл твирина, спать!
ВЪEБAЛ МОРФИЯ, ВЪEБAЛ ТВИРИНА, СПАТЬ!
ВЪEБAЛ МОРФИЯ, ВЪEБAЛ ТВИРИНА, СПАТЬ!
ВЪEБAЛ МОРФИЯ, ВЪEБAЛ ТВИРИНА, СПАТЬ!
ВЪEБAЛ МОРФИЯ, ВЪEБAЛ ТВИРИНА, СПАТЬ!
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Best narrative experience I've ever had, more stressful than COVID. 10/10 would not recommend to my friends.

this game ruined my life.
it made me scared of black smoke, every time I see a bonfire with black smoke, all I can think about is HEHE PATHOLOGIC 2 REFERENCE OOOOH and start screaming and pulling my hair out. I can't walk outside at night due to an irrational fear that a mugger from either of the pathologic games will throw a knife at me and take 90% of my health instantly. every time I get sick I can only think about the sand plague. speaking of the sand plague, every time I hear the word sand I can only think of the sand plague. every time I watch a medical tv show I can only think about daniil dankovsky and artemy burakh because they are doctors. even just walking has become a pathologic reference. I can't live my life without some sort of pathologic reference sneaking in, and it has utterly ruined me. pathologic also made me gay.

Amazing game, cannot wait for the third

5 hours in and I realized I basically just finished the tutorial so far
omg

You can't save everyone, and you can't learn everything. You just do what you can, do it in love, and stick by what you've done, 'cause the past will not return, and you won't get a redo.
Pathologic 2 dances with this idea beautifully.

Staying alive is a struggle, as the game makes use of very daunting survival mechanics and overbearing resource management, ensuring you can't just walk from marker to marker saving everyone. But, you're a doctor, it's your job to save everyone; moreso, you're the player, taught by years of gaming conventions to expect, and desire, to see every quest through to the end; but, as I said, it isn't so simple. The clock will continue to tick and the world will move on whether or not you choose to participate. And still your own survival must come first, for otherwise you won't save anyone anymore, meet anyone anymore. And to top it all off, to further get the point across of how your mistakes impede your life from ever being the same again, with each death you face, the game punishes you. I mean, really punishes you, permanently, as your deaths too become weaved into the more meta elements of the narrative. Load as many saves as you want, it still will not undo the damages. Your maximum health will be reduced, you'll become hungry faster, thirsty faster, tire way quicker, and no older saves from that specific run will be exempt of these handicaps. You expect to save everyone, but you can barely save yourself.

Save-scumming is still possible, though its reliability is minimal, and the game itself, along with the fandom, will vehemently recommend you don't. It's a game that encourages pushing forward with your mistakes and failures. Stick by them. Defends they make you stronger and better prepared, albeit not physically.

You'll learn to care for the people of the town and face every danger to keep them alive; you may even learn to love the town itself, as did I, with all its quirks and oddities, and seek to learn everything about it; but you cannot do it all. You must choose. At every instant, you're forced to make tough decisions, be they regarding your own interests or those of others, only to be reminded each and every time how these have now shaped your current reality, of which you can't escape, only adapt. Almost all of this, through gameplay alone. Just as memorable as its story beats or lines of dialogue will be moments such as when you, during normal non-scripted gameplay, find yourself forced to sell your gun, which you toiled so hard to purchase, just so you can buy a piece of bread. Or when you manage to cure a friend instead of having them disappear from the game forever, along with every possible quest or conversation they may have still had in store. Yes, if a character dies on, say, day four of the twelve-day total, so does any chance of you finishing, or triggering, any of the other fantastic moments you could still have had with them. The devs and writers made them with such care... But fate had you miss them. Everything is missable.

If, like me, you're a gamer who seeks to see at least most of what a game has to offer, then I urge you to not interpret my previous paragraphs as reasons to steer clear, but as the opposite. That is what'll allow you to get the most out of the experience.
It'll make you frustrated. Your sensibilities will be in a constant clash with those of the game, and that's a good thing. That's what you want out of this. More than for its exceptional, top-notch, legitimately perfect gameplay loop, Pathologic 2 should be experienced for the ocean of ideas and philosohies it tries and succeeds in sharing, both through direct and indirect means. The writing is stunning, and far more poetic than what's expected of the medium, and the plot and characters are all up there as perhaps the best that gaming has to offer; but its true beauty only reveals itself after realizing how much of it you missed, how much you couldn't do, which will then provide you with a larger sense of accomplishment for all the things you did manage. The failure is unwashable but those successes are what keep you clean.

What results is a game that most agree isn't fun, but something else. Something more. In a conversation with a friend who didn't yet finish it, due to only having the shitty PS4 port, came along the following phrases: "it's not something you play to relax but something you have to relax from after playing" followed by "it's a survival horror game about the horrors of survival" and I think these together sum it up pretty well. If you're not yet convinced to try this absolutely exceptional work of art, high art, adamant on pushing games forward and treating them with more respect than most of its contemporaries, then I don't know what else to tell you. You're priving yourself of what'll likely be a most memorable and impactful experience, if only you choose to meet it at its level and go where it takes you--which is why I can't recommend enough thay you DON'T play it in one of the easier difficulties on your first run. It's meant to be hard enough that standing still is the most stressful thing you can do, and simply walking becomes enough of a challenge to warrant taking up most of your time (ie. Dead Stranding). Do not prive yourself of that. If you see there's no way you can finish it under those conditions, then sure, but at least try, 'cause that first playthrough is something you'll never get back.

I know I'll replay it at some point, likely soon. I'm already itching to return to its streets and back-alleys. To breathe in its stunning art direction, accompanied by nothing but the town's sounds and the sound of my own thoughts. I want to learn more of it, especifically 'cause there's nothing quite like it. I want more.

A very engaging experience. A very thought-out story where each character has a place and every little detail is connected, forming something more than its parts. The gameplay is a fight with the time itself and resource management, where you almost never feel safe and confident that you'll succeed. Throughout the game, there are many interesting choices to make, that, if don't affect the main quest, present some sort of allegory that can be applied to many cases, so it makes you think of things from kind of a different perspective, categorize certain events. The ending(s) (The last 20% of the game, really) give answers to a lot of questions you may've had or you weren't sure of, putting the puzzle together into a picture that holds together surprisingly well.
Works and looks well on a steam deck, min-med settings with full resolution, getting around 40-60 fps, depending on, mostly, the amount of effects on the screen (plague flakes, rain reflections) and the amount of rendered buildings.
Amazing game overall, one of my favourites