Pat h o l o g i c

Ice-Pick’s survival RPG is looking dark, twisted and better than ever

eleased in 2005, Pathologic was a chilling and memorable survival RPG about a town afflicted by an otherworldly plague. Ice-Pick Lodge’s debut game was unique and oozing with pestilent atmosphere, but also badly translated, unfinished and somewhat broken. Now the studio is trying again, with the help of the $333,127 raised through Kickstarter.

RIn Pathologic, your character has only 12 days to cure a remote steppe town. But unlike many RPGs, time isn’t an abstract thing that waits while you finish sidequests. Events happen on a fixed timeline. If you’re not around to witness an important scene, you’ll miss it. If you don’t save a particular character, they’ll die, and the story will move on without them. What you don’t do is just as important as what you do, and the consequences to your inaction are a major part of the plot.

While the three protagonists, major NPCs and the basic layout of the town will remain the same for this remake, the dialogue, quest structure and interface are all being improved and overhauled. It’s clear Ice-Pick doesn’t want to stray too far from the core of its story and action. That’s wise— Pathologic was intriguing the first time, despite the many problems.

Ice-Pick recently announced a release date of late 2017, and continues to share development updates and screenshots. I asked Pathologic writer Alexandra Golubeva to detail the most recent batch of eerie images. Phil Savage

if you don’t save a character, the story will move on without them