Pathologic 2

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Twelve days to save a town from a plague you cannot kill.

Platforms: PC, PlayStation, Xbox
Price: Paid
Rated: Very Positive on Steam (92% of 12,233 reviews)
Length: about 30 to 40 hours
Players: 1
Made by: Ice-Pick Lodge
Released: 2019

What frightens A healer returns to his home town on the steppe as a deadly plague breaks out; districts fall to the Sand Pest one by one, the sick die in the streets, beaked and masked figures watch you, and your own hunger, exhaustion and infection close in while the clock never stops.
Content: death, disease, violence, body horror, child death themes.

Pathologic 2 is a first-person survival game from Ice-Pick Lodge set in an odd town on the steppe struck by a deadly plague. As its new healer you have twelve days: keep yourself fed, rested and uninfected, scavenge and barter for medicine, and choose whom to save in a world that keeps getting worse.

About Pathologic 2

Pathologic 2 is Ice-Pick Lodge's reimagining of its 2005 cult game Pathologic, released on PC in 2019 and on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2020. It tells the story of the Haruspex, a healer who comes home to a remote town on the steppe after a letter from his father, just as an old plague returns.

Time is the game's main pressure. The town lives by a clock that does not wait for you, and events happen whether or not you are there. You must eat, drink and sleep, and these needs grow harder to meet as prices rise and shops close. Medicine is precious, the sick are everywhere and you will not be able to save everyone. You can trade, beg, steal or kill to get what you need, and the town remembers.

Its horror is not jumpscares but slow despair and strangeness. Districts turn into infected zones with smoke and corpses, masked Executors and plague doctors walk the streets, the town's children play by rules of their own, and between days you find yourself on a stage being judged for how the play is going. The odd, theatrical dialogue keeps you unsure what is real.

It is demanding and deliberately uncomfortable, and many players restart once they understand how little time there is. It suits patient players who want survival horror about a whole society collapsing, and who don't mind a game that is designed to be hard on them.

How to play Pathologic 2

Talk to the town's people to learn what each day asks of you, and watch the clock in the corner.
Keep your hunger, thirst, exhaustion and immunity in check by eating, drinking, sleeping and taking medicine.
Scavenge, trade and barter for food, money and the herbs and tools you need for cures.
Visit the sick and the people who matter to the story, and decide where to spend scarce medicine and time.
Avoid infected districts and fights when you can; they cost health and supplies you cannot spare.

Screenshots

Pathologic 2 screenshot: a hooded beggar in rags holds out cupped hands in a dim, run-down room

Pathologic 2 screenshot: the parchment map of the town at 09:53 on Day 1, with the Flank district marked You're unwelcome here

Pathologic 2 screenshot: a close-up of Lara Ravel, a pale young woman with dark hair, in conversation, with dialogue choices about a letter from your father

Tips

Do not try to do everything; pick the most important tasks of each day.
Buy food early in the game, before prices rise.
Barter with children and townsfolk; items you don't need are worth more as trades.