PATHOLOGIC 3

The notoriously cruel plague-survival adventure returns

- Dominic Tarason

There are few names in gaming more intimidating than Pathologic. First-person survival adventures, bleak, challenging and heavy on the theatrical prose, Pathologic 3 looks to be the most complex and involved yet. But it also might also be the most accessible starting point for new players thanks to its charming, irascible protagonist.

First, a little context. The original Pathologic debuted in 2005, a first-person narrative adventure paying tribute to classic, soul-scouringly bleak Russian theatre and literature. The game pits three mismatched turn-of-the-century healers against an all-consuming plague threatening a strange and hostile steppe town that doesn't seem to want to be saved. Pathologic 2 wasn't so much a sequel as the first part of a grand plan to give each of the janky original game's characters their own distinct, more polished adventure.

I had my doubts that Pathologic could be stretched into three whole games, but after playing two lengthy demos for it, I'm more excited than ever, as developer Ice-Pick Lodge seems to have produced something wholly different and fresh, despite sharing its predecessor's setting and retelling a story 20 years old. And all of this is because we're playing as The Bachelor this time, Daniil Dankovsky, a foul-tempered medical researcher on a quixotic quest to defeat the very concept of death. He is brilliant. He is capable. He is the absolute worst.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT