Pathologic 2

Pathologic 2 is a story focused survival game with with horror lurking around many of its corners. You play as Artemy, a surgeon who grew up in "the town" (the game's setting) but left to study his trade. You're returning after receiving a letter from your father that he needs your help. However, when you arrive, you're quickly attacked by locals for being an outsider and then you discover your father has been murdered. To make matters worse, a few days later, a plague hits the town, forcing Artemy to really put his skills to the test. The game takes place over the course of 12 days. Each day you'll discover numerous questlines to follow, and it's up to you to pursue them as you please. Some require immediate attention while others give you more time to follow them. I would compare the way the game unfolds similar to Dead Rising, in that you can't possibly do everything and will need to be picky as you explore the town, which encourages multiple play-throughs. This game has multiple settings that allow you adjust its difficulty, but I played it on the intended difficulty, which the game describes as "almost unbearable", and they sure pulled it off. You'll need to purchase, find, steal, or loot items to survive, such as food and medicine, as well as trinkets to trade with locals all to manage your hunger, thirst, exhaustion, health, and when the plague arrives, your immunity to it. Keeping Artemy alive is never boring, either. Artistically the game is quite beautiful, especially when looking at the character models in dialogue and the weather effects. Numerous areas and creatures are weird and a little unnerving. The music, as well, is incredibly fitting. I don't have the word count to delve deeply into the game mechanics, so I would suggest a youtube video or two if you're interested exactly in how the game plays. If I can leave you with anything, know that the story and experience of Pathologic 2 is incredible and will be staying with me for a long time.

Absolutely thrilling. A game that made me feel a broad range of emotions, has invaded my dream world and has continued to occupy my thoughts long after the curtains have been drawn - I keep coming back to thinking about the characters, the Town's conflicts and mysteries and the choices I have made. I personally have appreciated the difficult mechanics. The concentration and effort that one puts in pays off emotionally. Most importantly, in this game failure is a feature, you are supposed to fail. I am an anxious perfectionist, I think that a lot of technology and other features of the modern lifestyle exacerbate that kind of tendency. Either way, I found being put in a world where I'm expected to fail, with all the bitter sweetness that involves, profoundly liberating. So to me, this is more than a game. Like a handful of other great games that I've had the pleasure to play in my life, this has been a life experience.

First: This game is hard, hard, hard. You will play it, and you will lose, and that's intended. Second: Ice-Pick Lodge are famous for playing tricks on their players. Their games lie to you, they misguide you, and replay is a matter of employing what you've learned. Third: I can't say how many games I've played, but Ice-Pick Lodge alone are geniuses. Pathologic 2 exceeds on a literary level, excels on a visual level and a musical level. This game is brilliant, more so than their lost gem Pathologic, the original. I was hoping for years for them to remake Pathologic, and they did! This was the first time in my life I contributed to an in-development game. Fourth: Like I said in #1, you will lose. The point is to accept failure as inevitable against a raging, unforgivable force, the Sand Plague. This game is both heartbreaking and astounding, dazzling, even. If you do not play Pathologic 2, you are missing out on a creation by the most brilliant (I mean it) gaming studio active today.

4 out of 5 because it´s mostly a too harshly unbalanced fight against bars and stats, fetchquesting and generally if you go pacifistic, which you will unless you use the custom difficulty sliders, you will realise it´s a pure walking sim most of the time. The Original was just that. Mostly walking and trading. PLG2 is just that too MOST of the time, but with reduced walking times and with sprinting and more way more combat. PLG2 is a reIMAGINING of pathologic 1. EXTREMELY atmopsheric story, world and philosophies, intriguing characters and a still beautiful hobo with a shotgun style hobo economy. Item spawns are smart as in, the game at certain days helps you give you enough water flasks/bottles when you need them, other items you still have to scavenge. this game, in it´s own terms without referencing pathologic 1 from now on, does many things better than most games, but also poorer than some others. Combat, is way improved but still janky and too stamina based. the thing about decisions decisions, decisions is a bit of a fluke in the endgame, but it does have many branches within the days from 2 to 11. Pathologic 2 plays within 12 days, each day 2 real life hrs. It is generally built with a starting point, many paths towards two/"three" endings. What this game does best is the world building, the mystery, the art, the sound (except weapon soundmixing), the general feeling of dread as you grow a personal attachment of these transcendental decisionmaking processes, and some characters. The economy is unforgiving and brutal, combat still does too. You will probably save often. You will walk alot, you will read a lot, you will hate your decisions alot . This game does one thing perfect, letting you feel like a microbe in a cosmos of fate. Immersive Sim? 100% in my book. It´s tedious, it´s beautiful, entrancing, torturous. So is framepacing, performance sometimes and the ressource grind. Exploration isn´t as rewarding as you´d expect either. Unique!

Is it a sequel? yes Is it a remake? also yes Is it unique? very much so I want to say a lot about this game; but I'm not sure that I'm actaully capable of doing so. There is an immersive and engaging story and world in this game and the gameplay systems re-enforce them. This is a game that is easily art, it has a lot to say and is using the strengths of it's medium to say it. And I don't think any other games went as far as it does in bringing gameplay to help it make it's statement. Gameplay isn't always fun, it can get really frustrating because it seems, and often is, unfair. That's also one of the points it's trying to make