Pathologic 2

Pathologic 2 is a 2019 reboot of the previous game, and Ice-Pick Lodge's second crack at making the most Russian game ever.

Most players agree they succeeded.

Among improvements made to the original formula are graphics that don't look like shit, a map you can read, voice-acting, and a lot of expanded lore. Cons include slight changes to previous lore and characterization, the game's inability to run on a toaster, the current absence of any routes other than the Haruspex's, and adjustable difficulty levels. That last one was only reluctantly added by the devs when it became clear they would have to live up to advertising Pathologic 2 as a game and not a ~artwork~ based around frustrating its "players".

Like we said: Russian.

Plot

Artemy Burakh was raised in a steppe town to succeed his father, Isidor, as its doctor/shaman. The town consists of two populations, the colonists who built it and the native "Kin', whose very real earth goddess doesn't like the fact that she was built on, or that her children are being seduced away from her by things like money, science, and basic plumbing. She especially doesn't like the Polyhedron, a big honking tower whose foundation spike stabs deeply into her body, and whose artisans intended it as a expression of human genius, creativity, and abstract thought.

Artemy knows nothing of the Polyhedron, having been sent away to medical school before it was built. After several years in the Capitol- during which he became an atheist- he is summoned back home by an urgent letter from his father. Unfortunately, he arrives just after Isidor has been murdered...and the douchebag in charge of town justice has deluded himself into thinking Artemy is the culprit. Since Isidor was beloved by all the locals, and the main thing keeping townsfolk and Kin from killing each other, the town rapidly devolves into a powder keg of paranoia and racist hysteria...

...Even before the plague hits. Known as the Sand Pest, it is a fatal, highly contagious disease with no cure (other than literally scorching out a victim's innards). It last hit the town five years ago, but all Isidor could do was prevent it from spreading. As the only competent doctor in town- well, other than the crazy priestess Clara, and the heartless foreigner Daniil- Artemy must do better. The fate of everyone within ten miles depends on it.

If Artemy can avoid getting killed by vigilantes, hunger, and the plague itself. And that's a big "if".

Good thing he has a lot of understudies.