I often describe Pathologic by saying "it's not even a good game, but it's the best game". I think this is the shortest way to capture the unique position this game occupies. It has artistic depth that is indescribable in a review. It electrifies my imagination and sucks me into an otherworldly atmosphere. One that is so rarely seen in video games. Much lengthier and more in-depth reviews have opined on it to the point of considering it the most important game in terms of its artistic caliber. But on the other hand the gameplay when judged coldly is merely mediocre. It can easily be boring. It doesn't even try to not be boring sometimes. It embraces being boring just to lull you into a false sense of security and then give you a hot load of existential dread and urgency. But that doesn't make a lot of the game not-boring. Or arduous. Not a good kind of arduous. If you're not the kind of person that gets sucked into the plot of games, these failures can be insurmountable and defeat your enjoyment of the game. But I'd like to make it clear that this is by no means a walking simulator or an "art game". It does what all good games should - which is that it uses gameplay to express itself. It is something that could never exist as a book, or an animation, or a movie. The feelings it gives you exist because of how it uses your interactions with the world and the stress of your decisions. It's rather masterful.

Pathologic 2 is a game with most of the strengths and faults of its predecessor. Let's get the faults out of the way first and quickly, since this is a game I want to commend. The combat is stiff and awkward and salvaged only by being rare - I felt compelled to raise fists maybe four times in a twenty-to-thirty hour game. The system by which named NPCs can become infected and die of the plague sometimes feels impervious to player influence - I once got identical results by treating everyone as best I could, and by reloading a save and taking a nap instead. The plague is supposed to be a force of nature, yes, but it's also a system in a game, and players who feel like they have no effect on a system are probably not going to bother interacting with it. Last and least, the default rate at which hunger increases feels ridiculously fast. Trying to keep Burakh fed is like trying to fill a well by spitting into it. Fortunately, this and many other aspects of the game's challenge can be tweaked via difficulty sliders. Now. As for how Pathologic 2 outweighs these faults to become a game worth recommending anyways: The writing is excellent. The town and its people feel alive, and the player character is no exception. Conversations between them flow naturally, from one choice to another to a conclusion. No looping back to a bland, interrogatory list of questions. The game’s mechanics go a long way towards creating the sense of a living town as well. Survival and time management – challenges and safe routes shift from day to day as the plague walks the streets. The sense of urgency and flow this creates makes the game very hard to walk away from. I’d love to extol the game’s virtues in more detail, but I’m running out of space here, so let me summarize instead: stingy text limit combat bad, but writing good buy for the story

The sheer amount of interactive storytelling in the game is mind-boggling. Everything is a choice, and your choices matter. The game reacts and creates an intrciate web of choices and consequences matched only by some hardcore RPGs. The writing is some of the best the industry has to offer, and reads like an intereactive novel, providing even more choices on top of the gameplay. This is an ACTUAL survival game, which gets progressively harder instead of easier, and the simple act of survival is an incredibly satisfying achievement, while the atmosphere and writing grab into you like a plague. This game is the best dominatrix you'll ever meet. Buy it.

This piece of media is one of the best experiences in gaming I've ever had. Nothing came close after it, while playing I felt like reading a book for how rich the story was. Props to the developers who went ahead and made one of the most unique games I've seen in decades.

playing pathologic 2 is like reading a book that is beating you to death. or atleast, that's how it feels. You are not a hero. You are not strong. You are not the main character. You are immoral. You are weak. You are a supporting character. You may end up murdering children just to survive, or murdering someone as a sacrifice to save someone else. You are punished for being incompetent and rewarded for being corrupt or evil. Most importantly, time. Most of the time in this game is spent running place to place while stressing about what little time you have. Playing this game is a large undertaking, but it's incredible. First playthrough should not be on intended difficulty, otherwise you will just have a bad time.