Announcing Pathologic 2

Pathologic 2 is an open world survival horror game set in a town being consumed by a deadly plague. As the only sane medic around, it’s your job to save everyone.

Pathologic 2 is playable at PAXWest in Seattle this weekend. Find the mega-orange tinyBuild booth next to the Indie Megabooth on the 4th floor.

About Pathologic and its complicated history

Pathologic started out as a Russian cult classic game called Mor.Utopia, then re-released as Pathologic Classic HD. The game had a Kickstarter for a title as simple as “Pathologic“. Now in order to avoid confusion, we have labelled the game as “Pathologic 2“.

About Pathologic 2

Pathologic 2 is an open world survival horror game set in a town that’s being consumed by a deadly plague. Face the realities of a collapsing society as you make difficult choices in seemingly lose-lose situations. The plague isn’t just a disease. You can’t save everyone.

Get to know it, winning the affection of the locals and gaining allies, or try to carve your own path alone. Explore the Town, its inhabitants, and their traditions; fight both the plague itself and its victims; try to make a difference before the time runs out.

You only have 12 days.

• 12 days in an odd town ravaged by a deadly disease.
• Time is of the essence: if you don’t manage it carefully, it’ll simply run out. You’ll have to choose how to spend the priceless minutes you have.
• Survival thriller. You’ll have to manage your bodily functions, offsetting hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and so on. But it doesn’t boil down to scavenging resources. Surviving on your own is hard; you’ll have to win over allies.
• An uphill battle. Managing your bodily parameters may seem bearable at first, but as time goes by, it becomes harder and harder. Your own body is only waiting for an opportunity to give up and betray you. Things are changing from bad to worse and the odds are stacked against you.
• A duel with an enemy you can’t kill. Your main foe is the plague itself, an incorporeal and malevolent entity that you have to defeat… without having the means to. It’s more powerful and more treacherous than you can imagine.
• Loot, murder, mug, steal, barter, beg… or don’t. You need resources to survive, but it’s up to you how to obtain them.
• The fights are short, ungraceful, and vicious. They don’t have to be lethal though. Many people—yourself included—would prefer to exchange their wallet for their life.

Switching to open development

In the good old days of game development, a team would typically lock themselves in for 2-3 years and produce a product in the end. This is how the original games in the Pathologic series came to be. Times change though, and teams need to adapt. I came on board as the producer from tinyBuild’s side, since we’re now publishing the game — and have been working with the team at Ice-Pick Lodge to switch development into a more open approach.

Similar to what we did with Hello Neighbor, we will soon be distributing alpha builds of Pathologic 2. Watching players and influencers play the game gives invaluable feedback, enabling quick shifts to features that work.

Ice-Pick Lodge are the original development team in Moscow, Russia — and tinyBuild are coming on board to produce & publish Pathologic 2.

If the PAXWest demo is well received this weekend, you can expect that build to be the one we share first.