Pathologic 3

About Pathologic 3

Pathologic 3 is the third game in Ice-Pick Lodge's series, released in January 2026. Where Pathologic 2 followed the town's healer, this one follows Daniil Dankovsky, a physician from the capital who studies the nature of death and has come to the remote steppe town looking for a man said to be immortal.

He arrives too late. The immortal man is dead and a deadly contagion is sweeping through the town. The game begins with that failure, and its central idea is time: you can go back to earlier days and try again, using what you learned, to save the town and discover the secrets of immortality.

As a doctor you work with patients face to face: examine the sick, separate real symptoms from lies, and diagnose them in a medical casebook, step by step getting closer to a vaccine. As the town's authority you issue decrees: quarantines, confiscating medicine, vaccination, patrols, curfews and the suppression of riots, and the people may hate you for it. Dankovsky's mental state matters too; apathy and mania change how he sees events, and can lead to insight or death.

Its horror is the series' own mix of plague, dread, grotesque theatre and impossible choices. It suits players of Pathologic 2 and anyone drawn to slow, strange, thoughtful horror.

How to play Pathologic 3

1. Explore the town and talk to its people to learn who is sick and what is happening.
2. Examine patients face to face and diagnose them from their real symptoms in your casebook.
3. Issue decrees such as quarantines and curfews to keep the town alive, and live with the consequences.
4. Rewind to earlier days when things go wrong, and try a different path.
5. Watch Dankovsky's state of mind; apathy and mania change what you see and can kill you.

Tips

• Patients lie; check symptoms against what you see before you diagnose.
• Use rewinds to learn, not just to undo; knowledge carries over.
• Unpopular decrees may be necessary, but riots have their own costs.

Questions