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Found a dead rat in my inbox this morning. When I examined the entrails it spelled out the following: PaThoLoGiC 3 aNnOuNcEd ToDaY. Ah, I see. Developers Ice Pick Lodge are working on a sequel to their infamously oppressive plague town simulator, only this time the follow-up will feature “a time-travel mechanic, allowing players to go back and see how their decisions change the lives of the townspeople.” It will also put you in the fancy-schmancy shoes of the Bachelor, a doctor fond of quoting Latin phrases, who will have the ability to order quarantines and request patrols of entire areas of town. There’s no firm release date yet, but we’re told it’ll be ready some time next year.
As the Bachelor the player will be more of an academy physician than the previous protagonist, using a microscope and various lab equipment to “research pathogens”. Judging from screenshots and the game’s description, there’s also some sort of management shenanigans going on too. “Fight the epidemic by implementing quarantines and deploying patrols to lock down the spread of disease,” say the game’s creators.
The “time travel”, meanwhile, looks like the Rashomon sort, as opposed to anything mystical or mad sciencey. “No, remember how things really happened…” That kinda thing. The player still only has 12 days to make their mark on the town, say the devs, but the ability to go back and alter some decisions will let you “explore and influence events in ways that reshape the unfolding narrative”.
To clear up any confusion: Pathologic 2, despite the number in its name, is not a direct sequel to the original Pathologic, but an extensive remake. In the original Pathologic, players could play as one of three characters – the Bachelor, the Changeling, or the Haruspex. For Pathologic 2 the developers chose to make the Haruspex the default player character at launch, with plans to add the other two characters in later updates. It looks like those plans have changed, and the devs are straight-up slapping another number onto the series. Does this mean players will also need to buy Pathologic 4 some day to see the Changeling’s version of events? Who knows.
I wasn’t too enamoured with Pathologic 2 when I wrote our review of the initial release, finding a fascinating world bogged down with an overzealous hunger meter and other survival meters. But later updates allowed players to tweak difficulty settings, which improved things for my run massively. I eventually enjoyed much of the game, like this wonderfully creepy moment on a derelict train track.
Many Pathologic fans did not seem to care about the harshness of the world at all, though. Noted congressional necksnapper of the Left, “Hbomberguy”, made a good argument for the game’s merit despite (thanks to?) its bleakness in a characteristically chunky video essay, never mind that he personally called me out in it, THE BIG POO POO HEAD. Will this third sequel become an extension of our beef? I hope not. I have enough blood in my inbox as it is.