GamesHorrorPathologic 2 is the greatest game you’ve never played, and it deserves a second chance ahead of Pathologic 3When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesHorrorPathologic 2 is the greatest game you’ve never played, and it deserves a second chance ahead of Pathologic 3When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Ice-Pick Lodge)
Ice Pick Lodge has surprised us all withthe reveal of Pathologic 3– an entirely new game launching in 2025, in place of what was originally planned as an update to its underappreciated folk-survival-horror predecessor. This gives us plenty of time to un-shelve an opinion I’ve needed to air for years: Pathologic 2 is the greatest game you always meant to play.
Aside from a smattering of superfans, the remake of Pathologic (confusingly titled with a “2”, despite being the same game) never found the wider respect it deserved. Mention the name to an assembled group of horror or survival fans and you’d be able to put decent money on someone piping up with an, “Oh, I keep meaning to play that!” As an illustration, the infamous Hbomberguy video ‘Pathologic is Genius, And Here’s Why’ has more than 11 million views, yet the monthly average player count for the game has only broken 100 eight times since its release.
So, now is your time. You’ve got no excuse. No more procrastinating, no more waiting for sales, no more forgetting about it for months until you see a crow and it reminds you of that weird game someone once mentioned. This winter, you’re sitting down and playing Pathologic 2.
No pain no gain
(Image credit: Ice-Pick Lodge)
Feeling uncomfortable?Pathologic isn’t scary, it’s unsettling. Deeply, deeply unsettling.
Feeling uncomfortable?
Pathologic isn’t scary, it’s unsettling. Deeply, deeply unsettling.
Pathologic isn’t scary, it’s unsettling. Deeply, deeply unsettling.
I first played Pathologic 2 for a review back in 2019, and it’s no overstatement to say it was a transformative experience. I’d never encountered anything like it; never had a game made me feel the things that Pathologic 2 did.
The problem is threefold. One: it’s been years since Artemy visited this strange, mystical Russian steppe town, and he has lost touch with the townsfolk – the Kin. They see him as an outsider, with his high ideas about university medicine, and require Artemy to prove himself through various rites and rituals. Two: he has absolutely no idea what this plague is, and no amount of medicine seems to keep it away. And three: supply lines have been cut off for weeks, the town’s water supply is turning foul, the children of the town seem to have formed their own cultish society, and he’s got just over a week to save the town before the authorities destroy it.
Additionally, no one in the town can give you a straight answer, secrets and riddles are all you’ll get. The town seems to function more as a living being than a mere geographical location, a sinister spire of impossible proportions is distorting reality at the edges of the map, and everything has to be bartered or killed for. In short, you’ve got yourself some serious pressure. More, in fact, than Artemy can handle.
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(Image credit: Ice-Pick Lodge)
The sense of impending failure at every turn, the knowledge that survival was impossible – yet with enough desperation and luck you might save just one life first – may be what initially turns people off this game. The bleak, washed-out artstyle, the eerie character closeups where uncanny eyes roll around in deep sockets, and imposing plague doctors that seem to loom right out of the screen may be more than some can bear. Is it fun? Not always. But itisworth persevering with.
It was a shame at the time to see so many reviews default to dunking on the game for presenting something unexpected. Pathologic 2 is a deeply unusual and uncomfortable game. I’d hate to get so pretentious as to call it an ‘experience’, but that’s exactly what it is.It eschews convention at almost every turn. You’re deposited in a culture that feels so jarringly alien, yet you know it to be familiar. These are humans, certainly. They’re speaking English, yes. The terrain and climate resemble Earth, sure. But a primal part of your brain keeps insisting that these assumptions are wrong.
The story relies on a relentless passage of time as its central conceit, but your fate is already sealed. Though your goal is to cure the Sand Pest and treat the patients, you can’t possibly ‘win’; you can’t save everyone, you certainly can’t save yourself. There are simply not enough resources, medicine, time, or prayers in the world that could make the horror end. In this way, Pathologic 2 is possibly the most life-like survival game I’ve ever played. Min-maxing won’t serve you here. You’re not a unique hero for whom the world rises up to make exceptions – you’re just a guy with a bag of nuts and a scalpel. The world ends whether you’re in it or not.
(Image credit: TinyBuild Games)
Losing your religion(Image credit: Odd Meter)This weird indie turns questioning your faith into a weirdly wonderful playable experience
Losing your religion
(Image credit: Odd Meter)This weird indie turns questioning your faith into a weirdly wonderful playable experience
(Image credit: Odd Meter)
This weird indie turns questioning your faith into a weirdly wonderful playable experience
You can’t break into someone’s house and loot their cupboards without consequence. Even performing your job as a surgeon could turn the town against you if you neglect their religious practices. Sometimes, when you die, you lose the ability to hug others. Occasionally, you’ll find cotton wool instead of organs during an autopsy. You bend to the rules of this world – it willneverbend to you.
All of this to say: don’t miss the chance to play as Artemy in Pathologic 2. You’ll soon get to play as The Bachelor – Daniil Dankovsky, a cockier, more self-assured physician – when Pathologic 3 releases, but Artemy’s story carries a beautiful vulnerability that needs to be experienced first-hand to be appreciated. His self doubt mingles with a tentative arrogance; his cycles of despair and desire, his heartbreak and pity for those around him as the town grinds to a very final halt – it’s equal parts tragic and transcendent.
Feeling extra spooky? These are thebest horror gamesyou should be checking out next.
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