Since its successful Kickstarter campaign in 2014, players have been eagerly awaiting the release of Pathologic 2, the remake of the 2005 horror title Pathologic. This week developers Ice-Pick Lodge posted a long update to their blog to let everyone know how development is progressing.
If you aren’t familiar with the title, Pathologic 2 is an open world survival thriller that drops the player in a small town being ravaged by a plague. You have 12 days to learn about the town and its inhabitants and save everyone you can, while avoiding illness yourself. Manage hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and relationships with the locals to keep yourself alive.
The project has been subject to several delays since its funding three years ago. The announcement trailer finally dropped just a few months ago, giving players a taste of the look and feel of the game, and high hopes that release would not be far off. But additional delays pushed a fall 2017 release into the new year.
Now Ice-Pick Lodge is back with plenty of news for their eager audience. This update brings more information on the nuances of gameplay and what exactly they’ve been working on all this time.
They’ve polished their inventory screens with a focus on maintaining a visceral player experience. “[Pathologic 2] depicts a disease that, among other things, is spread through bodily contact, so we want the player to always be conscious of what their avatar is touching.” In the same vein, lootable objects will now be split into several drawers or compartments, some of which may expose you to the infection, giving real stakes to what you decide to touch or open.
Particularly notable is the newly refined Autopsy system from the original game. This multi-feature menu is what will allow players to diagnose and heal living town folk, and examine the organs of those who have already passed for more information on how they died.
Combat, described by developers as “ungraceful and vicious,” is also still in development. Melee is being introduced into the world slowly, having been tested in separate environments first. Gunfighting is already up and running, but developers note they are still working on refining the process.
Ice-Pick Lodge is also working on building the town. While most of the habitable areas are polished, they are working on creating a few abandoned districts that have already been lost to the infection. They are also hard at work creating new characters and interesting people to populate this world.
As of now there is no official release date for Pathologic 2, but developers are targeting a 2018 release. You can read the entire update and check out a few GIFS of the new content on their website.