InPathologic 3the developers want you to approach the same plague-stricken town from a different perspective.

We got the gist whenthe game was announcedin October last year.

It lends the sequel a very different feel.

The doctor looks at the camera mired in a green fog.

This is basically a meter that swings between mania in red and apathy in blue.

Degenerating too far into blue apathy will see your movement speed slow to a painful crawl.

This regains your faster movement, but too much will harm your health and it can become addictive.

Cover image for YouTube video

The effects of each drug will lessen over time.

There are other options to get back up to manic speed.

As for the streets themselves, well.

The player examines the chest of a patient, encountering red marks.

It’s your permanent weapon, if not always loaded with actual bullets.

Holding your gun up at approaching reprobates will make them freeze and raise their arms in hesitation.

But it does allow for a frantic dash through fiery neighbourhoods.

Three Steppe people stand in front of the player in the street.

There were still plenty of moments in which I felt lost and sorry for myself.

This is very Pathologic.

For all its stitched-togetherness, the Quarantine demo remains good at building atmosphere.

The player points a revolver at an assailant, who puts his hands up in response.

As a showcase for what the player will be doing it’s also something of a disjointed mess.

Some quirks annoy me more than others.

or “what is it?”.

Six Steppe women wait outside the makeshift hospital, one of them riding a bull.

Some short interjection that just signals a conversation is starting, but doesn’t distract from the important text.

But Pathologic games hate being ordinary.

So here, characters will muse full inner monologuey thoughts aloud, dense ponderings that sometimes border on poetry.

The player examines a menu of decrees, which allow them to battle the plague.

It’s like trying to scan the menu at a Spanish restaurant while the waiter explains Aristotelian metaphysics.

Does this game want me to read or to listen?

I don’t know.

The casebook allows the player to make notes of various symptoms such as fever or vomiting.

Sometimes a delight, sometimes a chore.

Towards the end of the fifth day, some other tasks are dangled in front of you.

As the only doctor in town, the municipal government has given you emergency powers.

The player sees thoughts hovering above his assistant.

you’ve got the option to make decrees using a display board in your home, for example.

Or a “Food Distribution” decree, which greatly lowers unrest levels but will spread the contagion further.

One big feature that isn’t fully fleshed out in the demo is the time travelling idea.

A map of the town shows the districts that are plague-stricken in red.

The doctor’s struggle to contain the illness takes place over twelve days.

At certain points you’ll be able to wind back the clock and revisit a previous day.

I’ll let you unpack that one yourself, it’s too early in the day for me.)

A dying patient lies on the ground as the menu allows the player to administer morphine.

You’ll use Amalgam to turn back a grandfather clock in your home tower and revisit those past days.

But the further back you go the more it’ll cost.

And this demo cuts off before you zip back to the past.

It’s not clear how deep this rewind feature is.

Do you just go back and change a few things?

Or do you repeat the whole day again?

Does it undo everything you’ve enacted up until that point?

None of this is clear.

Whether it frustrates players or intrigues them, we’ll see.

Probably both, knowing Pathologic.

And that’s the thing.

And some of those may already be miffed that all this was originallymeant to appear in Pathologic 2.

We’ll likely have a full review of the sequel once it’s out.

Let’s hope Pathologic 3 can retain some of that otherworldly appeal.