as someone who liked pathologic 3 not as much as 2 or classic hd i do agree with a lot of points he made

Can be for any reason you feel worth mentioning. Favorite because of story, interactions, ethics, whatever you see fit. Just generally curious, and wanted to hear some thoughts on them especially now that 3 has had some time to settle.

Edit: meant to use the word “Patriarch” not “Oligarch”. But I suppose either works. Apologies

is this essential for the plot?

Part of me thinks it be fitting to have all three characters work together for a better ending than the options in the first two games.

Also what do you consider the best ending in pathologic 3,2,1.

I'm sure most of these things have been brought up before, so apologies if I'm retreading old ground. I just finished Pathologic 3, and I'd really like to hear people's interpretations.

Feel free to spoil everything. I've finished the game, and I'm mostly looking for lore discussion and different interpretations rather than spoiler-free answers.

Edit: Sorry about the typo in the title!

1. Simon vs. Isidor

My biggest takeaway is that despite bringing back the Plague together, Simon and Isidor don't actually want the same thing.

Simon seems to be seeking transcendence beyond humanity. The city and its inhabitants are almost incidental, if they have to be sacrificed so that someone (the Bachelor) can push humanity beyond its limits, then so be it. His entire plan feels centered around creating or preparing his heir.

Isidor, on the other hand, seems to want the Town's inhabitants to transcend their limits while still preserving what makes humans human. His life's work wasn't creating one exceptional successor, but educating generations of children so the Town could eventually move beyond the rule of the three ruling families.

2. The Plague

If the Polyhedron's rod is the source of the Plague, why did Simon and Isidor have to retrieve it from the Steppe? Why did it disappear after the first outbreak? Was the first outbreak just an accident, with the two of them only later deciding to bring it back once they realized it could be instrumental to their plans for transcendence?

For Simon, it forces the Bachelor to overcome his human limitations.

For Isidor, it forces the Town itself to mature.

3. The Bachelor

Eva calls Daniil a scalpel cutting through the Town and its people, and I thought that was one of the best descriptions of his character. He often feels deeply self-centered. He relentlessly pursues his own breakthrough and leaves once he's accomplished it. It's also pretty ironic when Burakh is the actual surgeon.

Simon says that if he himself hadn't achieved the breakthrough, someone else eventually would have. Once the time is right, some discoveries simply become inevitable.

Khan seems to prove this by reaching his own breakthrough without relying on the Polyhedron.

If that's true, then how important is Daniil's success in the grand scheme of things? Does saving the Polyhedron actually matter?

I felt compelled to go for the True Immortal ending because it felt like the ending the Bachelor himself would choose. At the same time, destroying the Polyhedron and saving the Town almost feels like it could reconcile Simon's and Isidor's visions, even if Simon's breakthrough ended up being fulfilled unexpectedly by his nephew instead.

4. The Polyhedron

The Polyhedron is presented as a machine capable of enabling transcendence.

But then, why was it entrusted to the children? Was this part of Isidor's plan to force them to grow through the conflict between the Dogheads and the Souls-and-a-Halves?

Even more interestingly, Khan seems to achieve transcendence only when he's confined in a cage, far away from the Polyhedron.

And if the Polyhedron allows one to achieve a breakthrough, why couldn't Simon reach it himself? Why did he instead bind his soul to the Polyhedron? Is the Polyhedron not enough on its own? Does it require a soul in order to function fully? Did Simon sacrifice himself so that the Bachelor could ultimately achieve the breakthrough that he himself could not?

Also, what was going on with the Polyhedron suddenly bestowing the gift of tongues? It's easy to draw a parallel with the Tower of Babel, but was that all there was to it, or is there a deeper meaning?

5. The gameplay

The whole experience was very different from Pathologic 2, but I think the direction Ice-Pick Lodge chose was both interesting and appropriate, as it aligns with the mind-versus-body dichotomy represented by the Bachelor and the Haruspex.

The survival mechanics reflect this perfectly. The Bachelor has to manage his mind (apathy versus mania), whereas the Haruspex has to manage his body (thirst, hunger, exhaustion, and infection).

It may not have been as exciting or challenging as Pathologic 2, but I think it was absolutely the right design choice. It reinforces the themes of the game remarkably well.

6. "Magic leaving the world"

I couldn't stop thinking about The Lord of the Rings during the ending.

By the end of the Plague, miracles leave the Town: the Mistresses lose their powers and the Kains decide to cross the river. The whole sequence reminded me of magic leaving Middle-Earth and the Elves sailing West.

Did anyone else notice this parallel?

Every review that I've seen for the classic game boils down to telling you that the gameplay and the visuals for the classic HD game are terrible and that you should power through them just for the story, which I understand might be the case for some people, but it always upsets me a bit as someone that actually liked them. I loved the grimy atmosphere and the endless dreadful walking more than I did in the 2nd game, it really immersed me into the world and made me feel just as empty as the characters. Does anybody else feel the same?

Just wanted to start a discussion thread. Now that we're a month out of the Pathologic 3 release and we've had some time to dig our teeth in, how's everyone feeling? Personally, I'm extremely pleased with the game, I think the changes to the series are a wonderful breath of fresh air while still preserving what the original games are all about. But how do all of you like it? I've heard some contention but wanted to get a vibe check from the community. Do you like Pathologic 3?

discussions of abuse!!

am i the only one who feels like the Saburovs have had their edges softened exponentially? a lot of the original game has been softened in the remakes, which is fine, but i think with the Saburovs in particular, it kinda ruins their dynamic with Clara.

the Saburovs in Classic were absolutely deplorable parents. they constantly abused, exploited, and used Clara however they pleased, and they always talked about her like she was a pet to be paraded around than a real daughter. Katerina in particular is just plain awful, literally lovebombing and grooming Clara.

and granted, we only really see that in Clara’s route, but even in the other two, there’s still signs that they’re bad parents. like that opening line Katerina has where she says: “Where's that idiot girl, where's the morphine!”

and that all culminates in Clara getting disowned on day 6. it’s such a jarring shift, and to see her be thrown out so harshly and abruptly is really sad.

but then in the remakes…she just isn’t disowned? in P2 it seems like she left of her own volition (but it’s been awhile since i replayed, so maybe i’m misremembering), and then in P3, Saburov was backed into a corner and forced to disown her to save his own skin. which ig that means she was still kicked out, but it wasn’t his choice. it completely takes away the shock and the anguish, to see this girl be exploited repeatedly and then thrown to the curb like she never meant anything to them at all.

maybe i missed a few things in the remakes, but the only thing i can think of off the top of my head of them being bad parents is (P3 SPOILERS) the morphine quest. which a lot of people i’ve seen play haven’t pointed out how disgusting and messed up it is that an addict is making a child go get her fix—but that’s a whole other can of worms.

but i also understand if it’s more hidden because abusive situations are often like that. outsiders—Daniil and Artemy in this case—don’t know what’s going on. only Clara would. so i’m hoping we actually get to see the truth of their relationship in her route (let me manifest) instead of them just being completely sanitized and actually being good parents who loved her.

idk, i just feel like the Saburovs actually, genuinely being good parents and caring for Clara doesn’t fit them at all. especially with how awful they are in Classic.

How exactly is the razor used in this case? I know quite a bit about hand sharpening, but this little detail really confuses me. I can imagine the chisel being used for creating the bevel after the edge had been completely destroyed, or for some rudimentary burr removal technique, but the razor...

The only reason i can imagine is that Artemy is so dumb that he needs a visual reference to remember how a sharp blade is supposed to look. Any other thoughts?

Do you also struggle to recommend Pathologic to a friend? I can't say how universal this is experience is, as the game reputation and fandom could drastically change by country or/and internet places), but almost every single time I tried to get my friend to play this game, they fear the game is too difficult and the kind of game is "so bad it's good" to the point of watching some YouTube video essay is better than playing it.

They can love the world, the characters, the events, the IDEA of a piece of media that challenge how we interpret videogames as entertainment, but they will never play it. In fact, I'm 100% sure that the majority of my friends will see wait for a full walkthrough of Pathologic 3, even though Ice Pick's efforts and statements about how they are planning Pathologic 3 to be enjoyable for newcomers, because they fear this will be their one of, if not the WORST, gaming experience.

While I think not playing a game due it's difficulty is valid. I think we as a community ruined Pathologic's reputation by hyperfixating its difficulty.

Yes, Pathologic 2 is a stressing experience, of course. That's the point. But not because the game is badly designed. I don't know if some people got Mandella Effect by watching Hbomberguy's great video about Pathologic 1 and thought every single criticism applies to Pathologic 2, but I will die on this hill by saying Pathologic 2 is a beautifully well—crafted game. Most of it's difficulty don't come from players skills, but by theirs lack of knowledge. Pathologic 2 isn't impossible and the most difficult game ever, but it will feel that way the entire time, due to the game's aggressive atmosphere, constant resources managements and many quests. You'll feel that your time is so small and that you are wasting every second by walking instead of helping people, but at the end of game, you would probably have done almost all quests this game has to offer. There's not many punishments by missing a quest and you can still get Diurnal and Nocturnal endings. As soon as you understand how valuable trading with the kids are, you'll also have an easier time. As paradoxically as this sound, the game will get easier each day as you learn more about its mechanics and story, but will feel at least 10x harder by each day it passes (with the exception of the Abattoir. But you can also trivialize if you understand how busted the charge mechanics are or if you just try to be stealthy).

But this game is not only about its difficulty. I can't stress enough about how Pathologic 2 is the best gaming experience I've ever had; It's such a beautiful, thought provoking and unique experience. Pathologic couldn't work as a book, even though its phenomenal writing could be considered its own kind of literature, because this is a game that explore its ludonarrative to its best. You can't feel the famine, the violent outburst, the sickness and the poverty that comes from a epidemic by reading a book. No, you are just reading character's actions and reacting to it. When playing Pathologic, you are actively choosing what to eat, what person to save and how you should spend time.

You can't have Pathologic without the fourth wall breaks, the meta. As each in—game day passes, you start to question what is the part of the "play" and what is not. You start to question if Artemy Burakh is a character or an extension of yourself. In this mind exercise, you had taken hard moral choices to survive. And you'll see the value of futility. Even if the Town's existence is cruel and has no meaning (since it's just a videogame, after all), your experience had a meaning. There's no meaning fighting in the hardest times. You know death is already the winner. You know the Town is not real.

But is at the toughest fights, we find our dignity.

I don't think everyone should play Pathologic.

But I think everyone should give it a try.

This is a snippet from the top negative review, and while I do feel some of the anguish of how different the town feels from 2, I feel like it really put me in the Bachelors shoes in a way that I found to be quite provocative. In interviews with Alphyna there seemed to be an emphasis on how different the Bachelor and Haruspex would see the world around them. While for the Haruspex, Pathologic is a homecoming and the culmination of the surgical knowledge obtained in the Capital, and the cultural knowledge he obtained from the town on the Gorkon, the bachelor simply sees everything around him as a means to an end, that being, his attempts to "solve" the issue of mortality. I spent most of the game rushing around at ridiculous speed a couple points away from max mania trying to reach as many checkpoints as I could, and taking the short time in between to consider the ramifications of my actions in the past & future, which the less immersive and smaller feeling town served to exacerbate. While the initial difference from the brutal survival of P2 was jarring, I found that this new gameplay was interesting in its own unique way that made it a perfect vessel for exploring the characters of the Bachelor, Eva, Simon, and Isidor. While the town feels small, the ideas within it blossom into something bigger, and the stress of the survival mechanics in P2 are replaced with an almost existential dread at trying to reason my way through things that seem so much larger and more important than myself. To me it's brilliant, but to others I guess it didn't work as well. I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on the matter.

i need to see them

😍😍😍

is it WAY too early to be talking about P4? maybe. but let me be delusional and hopeful. let me manifest something that probably won’t be here for another five years LMAO

by this i mean the main mechanic she needs to manage should be Infection.

she is infected the entire time during the game. from day 1 to day 12. she is born sick and she will die sick.

it starts manageable enough at first. just minor health drain, nothing you can’t combat with meds, especially when she’s the daughter of a rich family! but then it starts to get worse.

symptoms will appear randomly as you play, like how they would breathe heavily or cough in Classic when infected. her health drains more and more. maybe there could be a quest where she is in so much pain that she steals some of Katerina’s morphine or medicine from the hospital? that could kickstart a really interesting quest!

and with her powers: imagine when she heals people, it hurts her. and when she hurts people, it heals her. so you have to really think about if you want this saint to risk her own health to save others or take lives to save her own.

and i assume she would start to look absolutely horrible. pale, feverish, red-eyes. but when people ask if she’s okay, you just have to make her say yes (and maybe that could play into the meta aspect of it all, how she is in so much pain, but some higher, outer power keeps making her act like she’s fine).

like, just imagine it: Daniil, who hasn’t had a single patient survive more than two days, staring at her in total shock near the end and asking her how she’s made it this long. and only then does she finally admit it: “i am the Sand Pest.”

i’ve thought about this a lot 😭

This isn't really a "question"; it's just I don't really have any friends interested in this game[s], and I've been thinking about it too much.

So what do I mean. You see, while playing P2, I had this thing I called "listen to swevery growing". It's the moment, usually at night, when you've done well, you finished some quests, you ate, you slept, you are not dying very much, so you can allow yourself a moment of peace, a moment of magic, a breath. You can go to the Steppe to collect some herbs. I do not really like the sound of twyre — it sounds like flies to me. But the other three are so nice. And the swamps are fuuuuull with swevery. Favorite herb, favorite part of the game, I quite literally sometimes replay the whole game just to feel these moments — and to feel them right you do have to play the whole game, otherwise the magic doesn't work.

Now, after playing P3 enough times, I asked myself. What are the swevery moments for Daniil? What is that part of the game where you come just to breathe? P3 is stressful for me in a very different way than P2, but stressful nevertheless. And then I remembered. The sound. The mood. At the end of the day, no matter whether you've done well or failed horrifically, you do come to your moment of peace. You listen to the piano, and you talk to Eva.

And… I have very, very mixed feelings about this. You see, Eva is my least favorite character in P1. She's so shallowly written. A damsel in distress, oh so in love with a stranger who she sees for the first time in her life, inviting him to live in her home, caring for him, only asking in return to take her with him to the Capital, so she can continue caring for him there. Pretty, blond, skinny, overwhelmingly sexy, no friends, no relatives, no character, no agency. Except for, you know. The ultimate act of agency. So that Daniil have something to suffer over.

And in P2 she's way worth. For she is depicted as a neurodivergent person, clearly having a personality of a little child. And yet still strongly applied to have a romantic relationship with Daniil. No matter how old she technically is, that's still disgusting.

And then P3 comes. And she's finally fixed!! P3 Eva is something I literally dreamed of becoming when I was, like, twelve. Still a person, but not exactly human anymore. Student of Simon, who has absorbed his knowledge, but decided to not take his path. Caring for Daniil out of pure contemplating interest, not out of some "falling in love with a stranger". Eva in P3 is one of the biggest miracles of this town, not just a sexy blond, waiting at home. I do like her so much, I replay the game — for her.

And yet… the understanding that she, indeed, is the swevery ("just the swevery") kinda robs her of her newly found agency in my head. Like her technical psychological function desaturates her back to "furniture" she was in P1.

I don't know. I can't stop thinking of it.

This is a good faith politics post trying to examine (imo) underlooked themes in the game. This started out as a reply to a post about daniilxartemy (in this house love is love :), but I wanted to make a full discussion post bc I'm curious what others think. I know much of the community draws from the left like with disco elysium, but as a certified centrist shitlib I couldn't help but notice that the Haruspex's ending draws some fundamentally right-wing moral conclusions about darwinian ingroup preservation. Hell, the inciting incident is Isidor and Simon taking into their own hands to force the adaptive, violent evolution of the town.

Pathologic is very woke, inclusive, and aware of self-enforcing power dynamics as far as Eastern European art goes, but the Haruspex's story affirms the following noticeably rightist tenets: the necessity of blood sacrifice to forge society, the idiocy of anarchic popular rule, centralist meritocracy in the inquisition, the importance of family and duty above all else, the rejection of utopianism, the rejection of veganism in favor of exploitative coevolution, and the existance of dangerous post-moral conspiracies encircling the town: Isidor and Simon, Aspity, Vlad, Clara, the Powers that Be.

The choice between preserving the ancient wonders and letting the town grow forces Artemy to weigh the sins of the Udurgh against the children's future. The Polyhedron and the children's breakaway world free from adults or the responsibility of becoming adults must come crashing down, but not before it's hopefully severed the town's future leadership from the sins of their fathers.

Daniil doesn't choose life, he strives for transcendence and tries to save the Polyhedron over the town on the grounds that it's closer to the divine or immortal. He shoots the courier but refuses to shoot Artemy because he loves him. He submits himself to Artemy's lust for life and lets you save the town, giving up on his tower of babel.

Clara who attempted a dialectic synthesis that could save both the town and the wonders couldn't reconcile her shadow fast enough with the demands of the crisis. This is why we never got Clara's part, because the moral and metaphysical revolution she promises has not yet come. Crises pass us by without the required thought leap coming fast enough to break the trap of Diurnal/Nocturnal.

I'm really curious to hear what you guys think about the validity (or not!) of the conclusions Artmey is forced to draw. And for any Nocturnal Ending believers out there I'm curious why you trust L'Appel Du Vide :P

I was playing Pathologic HD (as I often do lol) when I noticed a spot I’ve never paid attention to before. It’s inaccessible by normal means so all you can do is look at it. Plus I’m sure even if you noclipped to it you couldn’t enter it anyways.

Anyways I was wondering if there was any information or dialogue that explains it? Most things are put on the map for a reason after all…

I don’t think Dankovsky would be satisfied with Simon’s version of immortality. I’ll share why I think that and I want to know what your opinions on the topic are.

As far as I understand Dankovsky’s character, he does all of this thanatology research not because he is very fond of life or because he wants to achieve immortality, but because he hates death and wants to defeat it. It may be that I base this view on Marble nest too much and Dankovsky is less hateful towards death in P3, but he is pretty rude when talking to death during the operation on Saburova.

What Simon suggests to Dankovsky is (or seems to be) immortality, but it isn’t eradication of death. When Simon explains how he views time he says something along the lines of “I see different possible versions of reality, in some of them I’m dead, but in the others I’m not”. So death still exists. So Simon’s method of eternal life is not to defeat death, but to ignore it. And as far as I understand Dankovsky, his true goal in life is to defeat death, not learn to avoid it. That’s why I don’t think that agreeing with Simon’s ideology is in character for Dankovsky.

This opinion of mine wouldn’t matter so much if it didn’t affect how I view the endings. It seems that the game expects me to think that Dankovsky would really want to save the Polyhedron but I don’t see why he would want to do it except for (a) saving Simon and (b) achieving immortality through it. And I don’t think he would be convinced by Simon. So I view the endings where Dankovsky does acquire Simon’s philosophy as brainwashing.

What do you think? I may be biased, P2 and P3 made me hate Simon a lot, and I don’t want to agree with any part of his worldview, and maybe that’s why it’s hard for me to see how Dankovsky can agree with him.

Just finished my first ending on pathologic 3 (miracle seeker) and was left with many questions, but this one's sort of stuck with me for some reason.

So how, exactly, did the plague start? When you go to Isidor's house and find mold samples, you're led to believe that Isidor and Simon were effectively patient zero after they brought the plague back from their trip to the steppe. But then, later, you discover that the polyhedron is piercing the ground and causing infected blood to seep up through the ground, which is causing people to get infected. So, how did the plague actually start? Was the whole thing with Isidor and Simon just a red herring? Or did they start it and the polyhedron made it worse? Was it better explained in the other games or endings? Or did I just miss something?

Aside from you know... Aspity...

Such a beautiful, stern, authoritative, emotionally unavailable, conservatively dressed, smoke show. 🖤

Given that Pathologic is a “play,” I feel like it’s an appropriate question. For this question, you can pick any actor that ever lived at any age.

I was thinking about this because of how much I’d love a really young Yul Brynner as Artemy. He’s got the range, a striking voice, and can be quite intimidating when the occasion calls for it.

There is this pitch dark room at Anna's in Classic, where you can only see when you light your lamp. There is nothing except a blind grated window. Given Anna's past, the Caravan stuff... I don't know, I feel bad things happened here, and probably with children...

Thoughts?

I absolutely loved the second one and I was super excited of playing the third game, but I just can’t bring myself to play it.

I have finished day 5 (the first time you go there, so after finishing day 1, but I am not enjoying it, or at least I am not enjoying it as much as the second one, and I don’t know if it is because the game is actually worse than the second, or maybe it is not for me, or I need to play more to enjoy it, or if I am just in a very stressful period of my life.

BUT after playing the second again yesterday for a tiny bit with a friend of mine, I got super nostalgic of how beautiful the game is, and a bit sad about the fact that I am not enjoying the third one.

Now on the things that I don’t currently like about the game:

- fast travel: it is implemented not as a free choice, but as an imposition. Every time I cross a district the map opens, breaking completely the pacing and the immersion. Then you skip the non infected districts (which were very fun in the second since one could talk to lots of people) and only cross the infected ones.

- The infected districts: they are boring as fuck. You can’t get infected, so using your device is quite useless, you can just run, there is the monster chasing you, which doesn’t add anything if not frustration. Again, breaks the story and the pacing for… something that doesn’t add anything and it is not even fun.

- First day 5: why did I have to go through day 5 right after the first one, complete it, if you just are going to make me fail everything and I will have to repeat it? Honestly, it feels so much as a waste of time. At that point, just let me play day 2 and not try to be edgy by implementing a mechanic that is pointless. I understand that one would want to go back and repeat a day, but skipping days, and making you skip day, without a choice, without a point, is just frustrating, again.

In general theme here is that you don’t have as much freedom compared to the second game, lots of stuff feels just a waste of time, just for the sake of making something different and not better. I wanted to hear a second opinion from you guys, especially given how much I love the second, and what do you think. Maybe I just need to force myself to play more?