Pathologic 2

miserable awful horrible "game" that nobody should ever play unless you wanna be pretentious about how games are art. ie it's incredible.

NPCs speak in abstract riddles, not anchored in any clear motive or world logic. You’re asked to care about survival meters and interpret cryptic metaphors from the jump. Story seems intriguing at first but dialogue turns into narrative noise with no signal pretty quickly and it lost me. Didnt pass the 90 minute test.

Pathologic 2 is a heart. At first, it beats slow and calm. The town breathes gently: people walk, life murmurs on. The pulse is steady. But time moves forward — and the rhythm shifts. Something is wrong. The heart stirs in fear. The plague arrives. People begin to die. No one knows how to fight it. More each day. Too many to bury. The pyres burn through the night. The smoke chokes the sky. The heart beats faster. The Inquisitor comes — and the rhythm races. The army follows — and the city shudders. The heart pounds... Faster... And faster... And then — it stops. Not gently. Not peacefully. But like a body ravaged by plague: writhing, gasping, spent. A final shiver — and stillness. The heart is silent. The town is dead. You did what you could. You gave all you had. The patient is gone... Or maybe this was his new beginning?

Maybe it's for some people but the cryptic theming is obnoxious to me. Everyone is on drugs, in a cult and lacking sleep. There are naked women bleeding on trees for some reason. There are naked men in masks giving me free stuff. The intro is a 30 minute dream sequence that tells you nothing. I get that it's going for a Silent Hill 2 dreamlike / hazy / psychedelic atmosphere, but at least that game has a solid starting hook before devolving into madness. 'Oh but it'll make sense later' just isn't enough when I'm an hour in with no gameplay or plot to show for it. Just a collage of unrelated cutscenes and dialogue that makes zero sense. So for some it'll be levels of incomprehensible genius and a masterpiece, for me it's just silly.

I should've known how strange and surreal this game was gonna be based on [strike]attempting to play[/strike] playing The Void so many years ago (maybe the single other most stressful video game I've ever played lmao) This game is a miserable and draining experience and somehow also one of the best games I’ve ever played, and that’s with me not even playing at the intended difficulty (I’d quite probably keel over from the stress of it all and die irl if I had) So Pathologic 2 is a remake/reimagining of the original Pathologic from 2005. The original allowed you to play 3 different characters to experience the game 3 different ways. Pathologic 2 however focuses only on the Haruspex character, a surgeon (emshen) named Artemy Burakh who has returned to his small isolated village at his father's behest only to find his father murdered and himself the prime suspect on Day 1. Queue the townspeople instantly hating you and beating the shit out of you on sight for 2 straight days as yo...

It is very very artsy and niche. Not for me even though theoretically I like the theme.

i love how the game treats you as a regular person but worse

I tried coming into this game with an open mind. The trailer, reviews, and everything seemed like it was suppose to be a neat experience. But damn this game is not what you expect but in the bad way. Movement is lousy, the fighting mechanics are awful, story is uninteresting. Just so many things go against it for me. I'm sure this game is for some people but personally I can't recommend this game to others. watch a video about it but don't buy it

Gameplay equivalent of eating rocks