Under the international name of Pathologic 2, simply “Pestilence” is hidden: not so much a remake of the iconic (or even cult) game of 2005 “Pestilence. Utopia”, how much more complex and multifaceted rethinking it is. As is always the case with unique handmade projects, it’s somewhat difficult to determine the genre in this case: the authors talk about a “plotted art thriller”, although from a formal point of view we have a Survival Adventure, or an unusual combination of a first-person quest, role-playing game, “visual novel”, strategic time management, “walking simulator” and even a small dose of Action. Yes, not everything in this explosive mixture turned out to be perfect, and some file processing is clearly still required for the project, however, what is already available is quite enough to interest not only seasoned fans of the original, who for five years, clenching their fists and holding their breath, have been waiting for the arrival of the new “Petroleum ”, but also for those players who know about the work of the Ice-Pick Lodge masters only by hearsay.

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It took cinema at one time a little more than ten years to go from a fair booth to a full-fledged art form recognized by a respectable public and sophisticated critics. The computer games industry originated in a much more turbulent and commercially minded time, and therefore it has somewhat fewer of its own Buñuels, Tarkovskys and Kurosawas. For example, the Belgian company Tale of Tales, which professed the principle of “the game as an object of aesthetic experience”, closed after the release of its latest project Sunset , for obvious financial reasons. The Moscow studio Ice-Pick Lodge, headed by Nikolai Dybovsky, has remained one of the few living developers who are not afraid to experiment and implement the fruits of their creative searches through electronic technologies, regardless of any marketing prescriptions and preferences of the broad masses of users. At the same time, her very first game, the very “Pest. Utopia” of 2005 turns out to be the most memorable for fans and just lovers of non-standard projects: only three years later, “Turgor” was almost as gloomy, surreal and full of metaphors that caused lengthy philosophical disputes on the forums, while “Eureka !” 2011 and “Knock Knock” 2013, for all their merits and for all their eccentricity, seemed more like side short films, distracting the authors from more serious matters.

However, the next and long-awaited big work of Nikolai Dybovsky and his colleagues was not something completely new, but a remake of their firstborn, which it was decided to implement at a higher level of skill and quality (and at the same time localization: due to not the best translation into the English original made a much less favorable impression on foreign players than on Russian-speaking users). The Kickstarter campaign brought in a third of a million dollars to Ice-Pick Lodge, not counting direct donations on the official website; as usual, this was followed by almost five years of waiting – and a delay of two and a half years against the scheduled dates. In the meantime, in 2015, even the Remastered version of the game, Pathologic Utopia Classic HD , was released, differing only in minor changes, primarily in terms of graphics – from which it could be concluded that in the real Pestilence 2 we are waiting for many more innovations and improvements.

For those unfamiliar with the original, here’s a quick rundown of the basics of the local story and gameplay. Events unfold over twelve days in a certain small city, located far from all centers of civilization, on the border with the endless steppe; life here flows slowly and monotonously, in accordance with the numerous traditions that are inaccessible to the understanding of strangers. However, this flow is broken first by the sudden deaths (and possibly murders) of two of the most prominent citizens that happened in one night, and after just a couple of days – by a real disaster: an epidemic of “sand ulcer” or “gerbil” – an incurable infectious disease that affects everyone. indiscriminately and destroying districts of the city one by one. On the layer of detective adventure (communication with colorful local residents, finding out the circumstances of the mentioned crimes, and then an attempt to find a panacea), the task of ensuring the survival of the protagonist (who must eat, drink, sleep and avoid infection) and a number of other characters (especially children) is superimposed , which play the most important role in the “Sea” and, apparently, possess some kind of secret knowledge inaccessible to adults), and at the same time a doctor simulator (because our hero devoted himself to some extent to this profession), a burglar thief and a marauder ( because all means are good for survival and saving lives), plus small combat fragments in the form of skirmishes with street bandits.

The original 2005 game had three storylines to experience the same twelve days in the sea, but as different main characters; Not the most pleasant news for fans of the capital’s guest, Bachelor of Medicine Dankovsky and who knows where the strange girl Klara, nicknamed “The Changeling”, came from out of nowhere, is that the story of only one of their comrades-in-arms has so far been brought into the new game – Artemy Burakh, aka “Haruspex” (the opportunity to play for the other two protagonists they promise to add later). Perhaps this hero really fits into the surroundings better than others: the son of a local folk healer, sent by his father to study at a medical school, he returns home, having received an alarming letter from Burakh Sr., and is only a few hours late by the time of his mysterious death. parent, which was one of those mysterious events that preceded the appearance of the epidemic. Being a surgeon, and at the same time knowing and remembering many local traditions, Artemy turns out to be one of the candidates to save the city from pestilence. Of course, 12 days is not 36 in full force, which it is not yet known when they will appear, but in fairness it should be noted that ensuring the survival and successful activity of the Haruspex alone turns out to be more difficult, lengthy, and even exciting here than passing through all three laid down according to the plan of the storylines of the original.

Suffice it to mention that now you can save only in specially designated places – in the houses of the main characters and some other public institutions, by activating the grandfather clock illuminated by a swarm of fireflies. Usually, such a restriction looks like an artificial complication of the gameplay of the adventure genre, rather reminiscent of a “rogue-like”, but in the “Sea”, oddly enough, it turns out to be quite adequate and consonant with the general atmosphere of a disastrous epidemic: there are no places to “stop time” in the city so little, they are all indicated on the map for orientation (after the first visit to them), and there are no restrictions on downloading, because all previously made saves are available at any time. The insidious intentions of the authors included putting the player in a deliberately unfavorable position: making a mistake, choosing the wrong path, not having time to do everything planned for the day, dying of hunger, fatigue, infection – this is easy here.

On the other hand, “Mor” looks very good: despite the Unity engine and some current optimization errors, the city located between the steppe and the Gorkhon River looks quite alive and the main character of the drama unfolding before our eyes. You should not expect bright colors, however, at night by the light of lanterns, and in the morning fog, and during the rain, all his houses, alleys and other outlandish buildings, such as the huge slaughterhouses of the Termitary, the bare “stairs to heaven” and the famous children’s tower of the “Polyhedron” (alas, closed to the public until the release of the DLC) give an already unusual situation an even more intense atmosphere of mystery and surrealism. With the characters, the situation is somewhat less joyful: we, of course, do not see our protagonist (pantomimes in the city theater with his participation do not count); the majority of numerous passers-by, as in 2005, are several carbon-copied types (a little girl, a little boy, teenagers, a young lady, a militaristic-looking man in a cap, etc.) – but here you just don’t want to complain, moreover, their assortment is diluted with not very human-like inhabitants of the steppe, as well as “leaders” in costumes of actors (in tights and masks) and medieval healers (in capes with beaks). But the key characters, of which there are two or three dozen and who rely on unique 3D models, could look more detailed: in any case, in the original Pathologic. Utopia” their three-dimensional images were successfully complemented by stylish black-and-white photographs, which, alas, did not get here. There is practically no voice acting, not counting the “profound” phrases-greetings of all the same main characters; but the musical accompaniment sounds quite appropriate and participates in creating the right atmosphere as well as possible.

Movement is carried out by the usual keys W, A, S and D; unlike the original, we are also allowed to run, holding down Shift and thereby saving precious time – however, the pleasure is not very long, because the scale of “breathing” (and then increasing “thirst”) appears on the screen. . In addition, our protagonist also has such characteristics as “hunger”, “fatigue” and “immunity”, as well as simply “life”, which is reduced in the event of a critical increase in any of the five previous ones. With breathing, of course, the easiest thing is: you just need to stop or take a step; there shouldn’t be any particular problems with quenching your thirst either: one or two bottles, previously picked up empty in a trash can (yes, this way to get hold of useful items hasn’t gone anywhere, so don’t forget to look into all the bins you meet) and filled in the nearest column or barrel (but not in the infected area!) will save the father of local medicine. “Fatigue” is defeated by healthy sleep – at least for a couple of hours; there are only a few suitable beds in the city, that is, obviously less than the game save points, but still quite enough (you can take a break from work in the homes of some of the key characters and in our own headquarters, successfully acquired already in the first day). But with hunger, things are more sad: the volumes of food consumed daily by Artemy Burakh would make Gargantua and Pantagruel burst with envy. Whether this is a flaw in the balance, or the fruit of the same insidious plan of the authors, however, for a considerable part of the game time we will not be engaged in the fight against the gerbil and not advance in the plot, but in the search for scarce canned food, crackers, bottles of hearty milk and other edible supplies.

As before, you can replenish your movable property – the inventory is called up by pressing “I”, simultaneously displaying the characteristics of the character’s state mentioned above – either for money in stores (in almost every quarter there are three of them without fail: “Pharmacy”, “Clothes” and, most importantly, “Grocery”), or barter with any of the passers-by; in both cases, the “T” key is used for this (there are also less legal ways: to search through the houses and the boxes in them, you will need, respectively, master keys – a mini-game to open the lock is attached – and needles). Unfortunately, with the onset of the epidemic, money depreciates, and then completely goes out of circulation – the assortment of things available for exchange is random and not always fair: the owner of the item we need may not be interested in anything from the Haruspex’s inventory, but children it often happens for various trifles, like nuts or buttons, to exchange valuable medicines. Of the latter, first of all, the so-called “immuns” will be useful, which increase, accordingly, immunity: this scale decreases upon contact with patients with an ulcer or with a black “plague cloud”, as well as simply when visiting infected parts of the city; in all other cases, it is automatically restored, however, if measures are not taken in time and let it fall to zero, the “immunity” characteristic will turn into an “infection”, constantly increasing and reducing the level of our vitality – up to gaining a panacea (or, previously made save, yeah).

Of the other control keys involved in the game, we should mention the left Ctrl, which highlights the characters who have something to say to us (the conversation, like other active actions, such as opening doors, is started by pressing “E”; the conversation involves only the choice of replicas), – as well as story goals. The “J” key is responsible for viewing the latter, which calls up a separate window of “lines”: displayed as icons, they are titled “Thoughts”, they appear in Artemy Burakh’s impromptu diary either automatically or after receiving the relevant information from a conversation with one of the characters , including ordinary passers-by, and always have a certain, limited in time, but far from always obvious period of validity: a day, two, three, or even just a few hours. Some events last an entire “act” (12 days of play are grouped into these larger periods), others only take place at night or in the morning. “Actualization of Thoughts” is carried out at 24:00 and at 7:30: I didn’t have time to reach the house of the character who called you to a secret conversation, take part in a planned event or save the right person from illness – and the corresponding storyline was cut off forever! Avoiding such a difficult choice is almost impossible. But moving around the city a little speeds up and simplifies such a remarkable innovation as public transport: the steppe boaters located here and there will gladly transport you from one stop to another for special coins called “nails” and are exchanged from children for 6 units of barter ( well, or are in hiding places and trash cans – if you’re lucky, of course).

Such high-speed movement allows you to avoid not only long trips on your own two feet, but also meetings with local bandits, because fights with them are not implemented in the most successful way. To prepare for battle, you should press the “Q” key, and then select the desired weapon: 1 – just fists, 2 – firearms and 3 – cold (number 4 activates a flashlight, often useful in the dark; however, it will also be needed light from time to time by pressing “F” and consuming the matches that you need to have in your inventory for this). The left mouse button is responsible for the attack, the right mouse button for defense. Revolvers and shotguns, to tell the truth, turn out to be an extremely unreliable means of killing criminal elements: they are expensive, require acutely scarce cartridges, and break with every shot. It is much more convenient to wield with a knife, scalpel or lancet, however, they deteriorate quickly and do not always hit the target, and the good received as a result of searching the enemy’s corpse, as a rule, does not close to cover the cost of bandages for treatment from those received in battle wounds. In general, it is still prudent to avoid fights by running away from a threat or moving to dangerous places with the “C” key pressed, which allows you to sneak.

But other local mini-games and special interface modes added in the new “Sea” are much more pleasing. First of all, this is the ability to repair weapons and other things, as well as an extremely useful increase in the size of your duffel bag (both of which are activated with the “Y” key) – at home on a workbench, using a few handy tools that you will have to do in advance buy or trade. Even more curious is the local “alchemy” – the creation of their own tinctures-tinctures that successfully replace immunizations and antibiotics and are prepared from herbs and infected organs. The first ones are harvested in the steppe: at night they are noticeably illuminated by fireflies fluttering around (like a save clock), and during the day they are distinguished by the sound of flies buzzing above them. The second type of ingredients will have to be cut out of corpses, as a rule, while losing reputation in each of the districts of the city (which, however, does not play a special role: survival is still a priority!). Pressing the “X” key on a sick or recently deceased character will allow either an autopsy (potentially four organs are available, and success in removing them depends on the level and condition of the scalpel), or treatment (diagnosing and eliminating the infection will require a different set of drugs used in a special mini-game), or prevention. The last action refers to a select number of key characters that it is desirable (but not necessary) to complete the storyline alive and which are displayed in a special list when you press the “L” key – indicating which of them are already dead or infected, and which are at risk diseases. In the event of a potential danger, it is just possible to give the right person a dose of immunics; in the original “Mor. Utopia, such people fell ill randomly, while now every midnight we can clearly see the result of our efforts to save them: the higher their immunity level, the greater the chance of avoiding infection (as well as death – in the case of already sick and stuffed with antibiotics thanks to us).

And yet, it cannot be denied that problems with the balance of complexity, whether intentional or accidentally allowed by the authors, leave their mark on the overall favorable impression of getting to know the atmospheric and diverse world of Mora. Even if in the early days, in a still healthy city, surviving, eating and getting to all the places of key events is far from easy, then over time everything only gets more complicated, and much more. The characters get sick and require care, and from the very beginning it is clear that it will not be possible to save everyone, but you also need to take care of your own health. On the morning of the seventh day, a gallows is erected in the courtyard of the cathedral, the inquisitor calls for strict interrogation, grocery stores refuse to accept money, steppe boatmen begin to charge double fare … Well, the most unpleasant thing is that after several deaths, the counter of which does not reset and loading a previous save, it becomes… even more difficult to play: a strange decision for the late 2010s. Not every user will want to start over – rather, he will give up saving the city from the gerbil halfway through. Fortunately, the authors acknowledged some of their mistakes, regularly release minor fixes, and in the next two or three weeks they promise to add a difficulty selection slider to Pestilence. The measure is quite appropriate: the game is still unlikely to attract fans of hardcore action movies due to the rudimentary nature of Action-elements, and fans of story-driven adventure games will be able to get acquainted with the local plot without much risk to life and psyche.

Perhaps, if it weren’t for the plans for this very patch, the overall rating would have been a little lower due to the fact that the authors were too clever in terms of survival. And yet – few modern games can compete with the “Pestilence” in terms of originality and atmosphere: in this respect, Ice-Pick Lodge has not lost its skill at all. And the duration is on top: even without taking into account the possible downloads due to the fatally wrong choice, get ready to spend about three hours of real time on each game day, which means 30–40 hours for the entire passage of the Artemy Burakh line. Which, hopefully, will be followed by the Bachelor and the Changeling! In the meantime, if you’d rather wait for the result of the overcomplicated optimization work, play through the original 2005 game or its HD version one more time in the meantime.