Horror visual novels Sci-fi and space horror Horror

Athanasy

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A lonely mathematician, a city underground, and something monstrous below it.

Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux
Stores: Steam
Price: Paid
Rated: Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam (97% of 572 reviews)
Length: 5 to 10 hours
Players: 1
Made by: Wirion
Released: 2022

What frightens In the City, the last underground refuge under a dead Earth, a lonely mathematician stumbles onto something kept so deep and secret that knowing about it can kill. The story moves through cramped streets, terminals and operating theatres into growths of red flesh and biomechanical machinery, and most of its endings are bad or worse.
Content: body horror, gore, death, dark and cruel themes (the maker says some ideas were cut as.

A biopunk horror visual novel by Wirion. Josiah Kaviani, a young mathematician in humanity's last underground city, meets someone, or something, hidden too deep to be known safely. You read and make hard choices that can end the story at any moment, with endings from bad to awful.

About Athanasy

Athanasy is a horror visual novel by the small studio Wirion, published by ST Sinovar in April 2022. It was written in Russian and translated into English, and runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.

The setting is the City, a nameless maze of cramped underground streets where what is left of humanity lives under a dead surface. No sun shines and no birds sing. Josiah Kaviani is a gifted mathematician and statistician whose great flaw is that he is entirely alone, until a chance meeting draws him toward something hidden deeper than even the City reaches.

You read the story over painted backgrounds and character art and make choices along the way. The makers warn that many choices can lead to an early end, and that the endings run from bad to awful; players say the full picture only comes after seeing several of them. A gallery tracks the art you have unlocked.

The horror is biopunk and bodily: surgical machines, red growths of flesh, a science-fiction story the makers say is grounded in real research, and characters with their own secrets. The maker notes that some ideas were cut as too dark and cruel, and most of the rest stayed in.

It suits readers of dark science fiction and body horror who are happy with plenty of text and a bleak world, and who like replaying to find every ending.

How to play Athanasy

Buy it on Steam for Windows, Mac or Linux.
Read the story, clicking to move through the text.
Make choices when they appear; some can end the story early.
Reload or start again to take other paths and reach other endings.
Check the gallery to see how much of the story you have uncovered.

Screenshots

Athanasy key art: a city street choked with red, fleshy growths and dark pods

A surgical machine with clawed metal arms and a ring of bright lamps over a blood-stained table

An old green-lit computer terminal showing a man's file photo, with narration text below

Poliana, a woman with metal-laced armour, smiling in a green-lit underground bar

Tips

Save often before choices, since a wrong turn can end the story suddenly.
Expect to see bad endings first; players say the story makes more sense across several.
Take your time with the reading: details about the City and its people matter later.
Play with sound on; the soundtrack was written for the game.