Pathologic Classic HD (2015)

Pathologic is a game that I have had on my backlog for awhile. I guess that isn’t true. I actually have Pathologic 2. It was the first game in the series I bought and I didn’t even realize it was a remake or retelling of the first game. I think this year I have really embraced playing some older titles. Titles like Echo Night, Resident Evil among others have been a real help in shaping how I think and feel about games from the past compared to titles released today.I have thought about friction and controls and how a games system can help it succeed. I think about things like how combat is actually bad beyond feeling in classics like Silent Hill or could the bad combat be designed intentionally. Pathologic takes this a step further where it even asks if the game should even be fun to play.

Pathologic is one of the most existential games I have ever had the joy or lack thereof to play. I want to thank @grubmaiden for getting me to actually sit down and interact with the game. Since I had 2 it was kind of a pipe dream of mine to actually play the first one but after hearing a small explanation I decided to take the plunge and was rewarded almost instantly. Even at the character select I knew I realized I was going to be playing something special. I know it sounds like I am blowing smoke but sometimes I just have a feeling for games I know I am going to resonate with. Other examples include Disco Elysium and 1000xResist. I think I didn’t quite realize how well thought out and executed Pathologic was.

The design and gameplay of this game really keeps you on edge and can keep you guessing. For starters I love that the game really tells you the bare necessities for getting your feet wet. I love how my first 4 days playing as the Bachelor in this town were just about learning. Learning about how to make money, who does what, who you can trade with, what you should be selling, why it is important to go out at night and so much more.

I mentioned trading and making money and one of the points that I feel like this game nails is learning how essential the working class are to the town. This might seem like an obvious lesson but having gone through a pandemic ourselves, we should not forget how essential even the lowest wage jobs were in that time and why it is important for them to be paid a living wage. In the town not only do shops stay open during the plague but prices fluctuate day by day. The most harsh day is definitely day 2 but you can skirt around that by trading with townspeople if you buy things like needles, fishing hooks, etc… The game goes out of its way to not only show how important your regular townspeople are but it also critiques the market conditions that many of us live under. Food should be more affordable during an emergency, not the other way around.

The other thing that I really loved was learning how much the children and workers can help you. In the town the children will trade things like bullets or medicine to you, while the workers closer to the termitary can fix your weapons, and seamstresses can fix your clothes. You really get to know who is helpful and where they are in the town. For example, you never find the workers where most of the movers and shakers are located, they are in the worker districts or by the railway and when those areas are hit with plague and you need something repaired, you feel their lack of presence. The focus is on the people, less so the ones in charge. This made my first playthrough very memorable as I fought tooth and nail to make it to the final day.

So, I spent my first playthrough learning Pathologic through the eyes of the Bachelor Daniil Dankovsky. Truly I don’t think there could be a more perfect introduction to a game than him. From the jump, you are an outsider coming to a weird town with strange customs bringing a higher education and an ego with you. I thought his view and the players knowing nothing about the game would be perfectly aligned and I even caught myself bringing in some of his assumptions.

It was here that I realized what kind of character Daniil is. He is arrogant and dismissive of the town's folk. He uses his education to flaunt how he is the best person to help and how everyone and their customs are just in his way. Some of the things this man can say to people are completely rude and I cannot believe that he was given the power to make decisions over the plague and the people.

Though that's not really the case though is it. Something begins to take root in the player's mind as the days drag on. It’s that Daniil isn’t in as much control as he thinks. The game even plants the seed that people will lie to you to get things that they want during this crisis. As the player I became suspicious of those whom I was bound to. I thought I had picked up on what the game was putting down but instead I walked blindly into it. I love that the game was able to pull this off. I like how it influenced my own behavior to prioritize the bound to Daniil and never ask why the game would tell me this. I love that Daniil feels like a puppet mouthpiece in the story who is constantly circumvented, manipulated, and undermined.

From the sound of it, it would seem that I view Daniil’s ending to the story to be the bad ending. I want to make it clear that I do. To me the ending where you shell the city and let the people housed in the polyhedron begin again is one that was so relevant to today. Authors Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor wrote a piece earlier this year called The Rise of End Times Fascism and while I won’t go through the nitty gritty of the piece, it does connect this idea to the ending of the game. To broadly summarize, it states how the global elite put people in power to give them tax payer funds for private cities or other fiefdoms around the world, and how they will use those cities to build up for the end of the world. These are the same people who push for AI to accelerate the climate crises even further. This feels like it is exactly what the polyhedron is designed for. It was made not to save the city or the people but to preserve those in power so that they can survive the apocalypse or end times. To me it is an ending that connects to the modern day in a way that the developers probably couldn’t have anticipated.

One of the last things that I want to talk about in Pathologic is something that I felt on a very personal level. I know I don’t think or act like Daniil but over the course of the game I realized something. I realized that my empathy could be turned into a sword and used as a tool to harm people. I think the cold logic he applies to the people is something similar to how I think in an abstract. I feel that much like Daniil I could apply that cold careless logic to make decisions or to help people who claim they are doing good but will only actually harm communities impacted. It is like Clara says in the beginning of the game “Those who favor hard logic and direct action are bound to be misled.” When I finished the game and loaded up the intro again, that was the most damning line to me. It felt like the game held a mirror in front of my face and asked me to stare directly at my own reflection speaking those words.

I know through this review I have only spoken about the Bachelor and his route through the 12 days the game gives you and that's because I have not had a chance to finish the Haruspex or the Changling’s routes yet. At the time of writing I am on day 4 with the Haruspex and I can already see how diametrically opposed he and Daniil are and their approaches to the citizens have different tones. I have read and gotten a small gist of what Clara is like though I am excited to see her playthrough even if it is unfinished. I want to experience all three routes and possibly write more about this game. There is so much I have felt left on the table like how the state uses violence during these situations. How mutual aid and community truly help us thrive in these kinds of situations. Pathologic hit so close to home because it felt like going through the Covid 19 Pandemic again. How we the people are left paying for inflation after corporate profits rose astronomically during that time. How state violence was deployed against the people who were protesting during the death of George Floyd. I think Pathologic really earns its spot as one of gaming’s greatest games. I love reading what people have written about this game and I am excited to continue playing and learning.

Being a huge fan of the game I was ecstatic about the new updated release and picked it up immediately. To me, Pathologic is a flawed masterpiece. It's so peculiar. The game mechanics are confusing, the story is told by a bunch of characters, all of whom lie to you and mislead you, so it's difficult to tell what's really going on. The city is a giant maze, difficult to navigate and can be very dangerous. The AI of all NPCs is a mess, and the game is riddled with bugs. Even figuring out what the hell you're supposed to be doing is borderline-impossible. And then, to add insult to injury, they threw in survival elements and a strict timer, giving you extremely limited time to complete the objectives of the game.

BUT: there is something undeniably brilliant about the whole thing. Despite all these criticisms, I am strangely drawn back into that world time and time again. The first thing is that atmosphere. It's surreal and haunting and unlike anything else I've played. There's a solemn beauty to that place and it's a delight to explore. In some ways, the chaos and confusion of it actually adds to the experience because it starts to feel less like a game and more like real life. In real life, you overhear conversations that you don't understand. People mislead you. You sometimes feel lost.. people are unpredictable. Time ticks by and opportunities are lost. It's like a reflection of real life as a stranger in a strange town and it breaks all of the standard videogame conventions. There are times of sudden awe and beauty, other moments of utter despair and horror as strange events occur or as things begin to crumble around you. And I cannot fail to mention the incredible eerie soundtrack, comprising of many tracks, which quietly plays along in the background, this too is quite odd and beautiful and adds another layer to the sense of mystery and makes you feel like there's something around the corner which will help you unravel this cryptogram.

I tried to beat it (maybe my 4th or 5th attempt) earlier this year and I got further than ever before.. but I didn't make it. Eventually I was kind of overwhelmed by the gloom and hopelessness.. looking for this orphan boy and unable to find him. I ended up quitting and I didn't return. And yet still this game always sits in the back of my head like some haunting daydream, and I want to go back there and unravel the mysteries and to know what's really going on in that town, and who those people really are.. and what are all those urchin children really up to?

You wander the streets of this bizarre, foggy town filled with strange people and abandoned buildings, peculiar factories.. this place is diseased, on the edge of collapse, like they're quietly waiting for the apocalypse. You find yourself in this huge sprawling town and you soon find yourself embroiled in the politics, the relationships, the disagreements, power struggles and disputes of the townspeople. As a genre, it has some RPG elements, some survival elements, some walking sim elements, but there is also combat .. but also a deep, rich story and it almost devolves to a visual novel at times. It cannot be pinned down easily. Perhaps it's more "game-as-art".

Most exciting of all is that the devs are actually working on a totally new version of this game, from scratch. Totally new characters, ideas, more accessible, better appearance, a clearer path to progression but while still retaining the core elements which make this game hauntingly beautiful. I hope they succeed and I look forward to see what they do with it. It's a bold decision from the devs, since the original game was a cult hit but never really held much mainstream popularity. The trailer is here: http://pathologic-game.com/