PATHOLOGIC RUINED MY LIFE.
What is Pathologic? The more clinical description of Pathologic is cited via the wiki. The Pathologic Wiki describes it
“Pathologic is a 2005 psychological horror survival role-playing game developed by Russian game studio Ice-Pick Lodge. On May 23, 2019, Pathologic 2 was released as a re-imagining of the original.
A mysterious and deadly disease breaks out in a remote town in the Russian steppe. It is highly contagious and kills whoever contracts it, giving them only several days left to live. This struggle to survive follows three healers and their individual stories. One is a learned doctor from the country’s capital, named the Bachelor. The second is a local medicine man who has returned at the request of his father, named the Haruspex. The third and final healer is a strange young girl who claims to be both a saint and a miracle worker, named the Changeling.
Taking on the role of one of the healers, you’ll explore the Town, its traditions and history, and the complex relationships of its inhabitants. You will only have twelve days to defeat the invisible enemy called the Sand Plague. You will not be able to save everyone. Time will never be on your side and choices will haunt your every step. You’ll want to get closer to your goal, but sometimes it’ll all come down to whatever means of survival that you have. In a time of both fear and uncertainty, would you share medicine with important figures who will unveil the Town’s numerous secrets in return, or would you rather keep the medicine in case you get sick? Pathologic is a bleak and harsh survival adventure that’ll make sure of it.”
I find that this clinical, quick and easy to understand description does not accurately describe what Pathologic is, means, or does to the player. This paper aims to summarize what Pathologic is and the themes of this cult classic game. Pathologic, the original, sequel and mood piece that is their dlc, is one of the most amazing franchises I’ve ever had the chance of playing. I played Pathologic, I dreamt about it, I’ve watched hours of video essays, but not a single one even comes close to how important this game is to me. Pathologic might be one the most important game series to ever exist, and it’s everything to me.
Pathologic is about grief. Missing another person so deeply that you don't know how to cope. Suffering, your life and dreams crushed by missing another person. Identity lost— how are you supposed to know who you are if you've lost someone you cared for so much? In Pathologic you are a doctor. You save lives and… you watch people die. You watch your friends disappear in Pathologic. You lose all you have and everyone because you can't save everything. Its..It's… hopeless. The Town is on Fire, you're starving and half dead, infected with a plague! How can you save everyone if you can't save yourself? In Pathologic, you suffer. No, no that's not right. You persevere through the suffering. Pathologic is meant to be hard, it's meant to make you want to quit and challenge you through the hardest of survival horror games. You'll run around town, people WILL lie to you and they'll laugh. They'll find it entertaining as you chase loose ends and try and win when in the end, winning was NEVER an option. The design philosophy about Pathologic is to make you suffer and feel what the characters are feeling through frustration. It's one of the MOST interactive video games out there because in Pathologic 2, you become Artemy, you feel happy when you get the ending. In the Bachelor's route, you become Daniil. After everything and everyone that hurts you of course you'll want to destroy the town because the only good thing in town is the Polyhedron. You become the characters and in turn… you can learn from the characters. If you haven't played Pathologic, this is your warning. Please. Play Pathologic, it's worth your time and it's one of the best games of all time. Pathologic is about three healers who have to solve a plague. It's also about three damaged and hurt people growing and learning and having problems we can relate to despite the very intense circumstances. We can learn from this game and apply it to ourselves— we can learn to overcome hardships if we look to… video games.
Video games are special, yeah. I'm going there. Video games can make the character interact with a world and become the protagonist. Most video games use this for their power fantasy. Be a strong, heroic amazing person who can kill hoards of zombies and suplex a… full grown man! It's who you want to be, who you wish you were. Pathologic… slightly different. In Pathologic, you aren't a hero– you're a doctor with a gun. You're living in a world where a plague is running rampant and you have no control. Control, that's the theme of the game. Control and the lack thereof. There is no controlling what happens, the stock market crashes, you starve— people you love get sick and you can't do anything but try and stall them from getting ill, begging, hoping they don't die! In the cases of Eva and Aglaya in the second game… there is no saving them. As the Bachelor, you spend the whole game being controlled by the Kain family without even knowing. As the Haruspex, you're controlled by Oyun if you want more Living Blood to make the plague. If you're the Changeling, you're controlled by everyone because you're a miracle worker. Yet you continued to play or watch, despite the impossible hardship you've tried and tried and you hopefully got an ending. not a happy one, maybe not a perfect one but a good enough one. Daniil has his dreams shattered. He tries to defeat death and loses. I'm sure we can all relate to having our dreams or ambitions set aflame. Artemy loses his family. He has no one but himself to rely on and he has impossible expectations put on him. We can all relate to grief and living up to… your name. Clara has no one. She gets adopted and her Adoptive family love-hates her. People use her over and over because she's important. We can relate to her identity issues and being used.
Despite the game being so inhuman, we can relate to these VERY human problems.
The Bachelor is smart- he has enough hubris to believe he can defeat death. The only inevitability in life. He has a dream (not the song from tangled) and he will make it come true. A celebrity Thanatologist from the capital city visits the town on gorkhon to try and find the key to defeating death. Or so he thought. Of course, it doesn't go right. First, the only person he came he for is dead! The immortal man.. literally dies. Then a plague starts and he can't leave the Town-On-Gorkhon despite trying. He tries to make a vaccine… it doesn't work. Daniil then tries to start a quarantine… it doesn't go as planned. He gets beat up by butchers, his morals are challenged— And then it gets worse. He loses his only friend, the only person who consistently believed and trusted him- the only person who didn't manipulate him or hurt him. He loses Eva Yan. Then he loses his life's work. Thanatica is in ashes. Playing as Daniil when this happens is like a slap in the face. You worked so hard for all of this only for it to crumble apart. And there's still hope. The Polyhedron, say what you might, it's a masterpiece. A miracle— and something Daniil can keep holding on to. To keep living for. And depending on the game and ending he gets what he wants. How can we learn from this? Well, if you lose everything, become obsessed with this cult-like creation that defies logic?! Ha, well, no. I mean if you lose everything, your dream or job, like you did playing as Daniil… find something new to pursue. It could be as small as adopting a cat or learning to cook… or studying a big giant tower in the sky. Whatever makes you happy.
Losing Family. Losing Friends. Losing anyone is probably one of the hardest things we all go through. Death is inevitable, we will lose someone and we'll feel alone. Artemy expects to come home to his dad and.. returns to a town that he can't recognize. A dead father and a mugging. It's just his no-good very bad day. This is where it gets complicated because there are two games but it's generally the same. Artemy goes through a bunch of trials and suffers non stop to make a cure for a town that despises him over and over. Is lied to non stop and doesn't have time to grieve. Artemy, like us, understands grief. He gets the expectations that we all live up to. He gets the… most universal story out of everyone. After his father dies he's expected to pick up his father's name. After someone we love dies, especially a parent, we're expected to fill the hole that they did. And oftentimes we can't— because we aren't our parents. We're their children. Artemy, instead, forges his own path. One that balances who his father was and who he's expected to be and the town. His chosen family and his… inherited family. He learns to cope with his father's death by surrounding himself with unending love, his friends like Lara and Grief… to his children. Choosing your family. I love that. I am a Filipino person— and I am also adopted by a white woman. To Filipinos, family means a lot. And I don't really have filipino family because my birth family didn't want me, and my chosen family does. And this makes me feel… seen in a way. Validating that choosing your family is perfectly okay. You can choose your family. And we can do the same. Crushing expectations can be coped with by fulfilling a bit of that expectation AND being ourselves. Surrounding ourselves with loved ones can cope with death. There's no right way to do this, none of this is easy. Was Pathologic an easy game? It's trial and error.
I relate to Clara the most. I was a teenager when I found her a very long time ago. I wrote this section a few years back but this is what younger teenage me felt about her: I don't know who I am if anyone. I don't know who I'll be or if I'm the embodiment of an evil person or if I'm a good person under layers of teenage angst. Clara, to me, represents the way teenagers can feel lost. She's a… miracle worker and the plague. She's manipulated by all the adults in her life for their own gain. Adults are manipulative, they think just because teenagers are younger, they don't really understand. we can all relate to being unsure of our identities, like what job will you do in college? What company to apply to? Did you make the right choices in your life? Are you happy with where you are? We can relate to being manipulated. That toxic relationship, abusive parent or shitty friend we had. Clara… doesn't have a definitive ending to hers. I think it's probably because hers is unfinished and— that makes this segment hard. what can we learn from Clara? how can we grow from playing as her? what do we learn, what's the theme of HER story? I don't know.
It sounds cheesy and corny but she's literally the Changeling, that label is much more up to interpretation compared to the Bachelor and the Haruspex. Those are specific, a scholar and a surgeon and a… creature who can shape-shift. Our personalities are ever changing shape-shifting amalgamation of the things around us and how we were raised. And manipulation — I don't know how to cope with that. Just knowing that you were and remembering what they did and how to avoid it… is all you can do. What can we learn from pathologic as a game? Pathologic can teach us how to find hope in Sorrow. A happy ending isn't perfect, we still have to sacrifice something to get a decent ending and sometimes that sacrifice may be massive. But contentment is… enough.
Pathologic can teach us that in the face of adversity and Sorrow, through hard work and… lots of sacrifice… Maybe not perfection or pure happiness is possible but hope is.
Pathologic can help us learn to continue and persevere through our suffering by letting us be the characters that have to grow. In this inhuman world full of not quite human characters… a lot of them have human problems. Not just the main three.
Lara is getting over grief her own way, she represents the millions of people too scared to talk about their emotions. The Kains represent people who are so self absorbed in their own dream to think of anyone but themselves. There's so much more I could say, I could infodump for hours about this God forsaken game but I don't think you want to hear that.
You can trust me on my opinions. Wanna know why?
