Pathologic 2

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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 readable map, voice-acting, and a lot of expanded lore. Downgrades 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 (or, "menkhu"). 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, 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 hit the town before, 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.

Artemy Burakh

The protagonist, a young surgeon whose entire character arc revolves around his biracial angst. He's a cynical man whose bulk makes him look like the villain of a horror movie, but beneath that is a kind country boy who would do anything to save his town. Including butchering people and selling their organs on the black market.

That is one reason why most of the cast don't like him. The other is that he was supposed to be the Kin's next menkhu, but he left the steppe and came to believe that their religion was ignorant bullshit. However, nobody else has the special menkhu power to make halal meat (the Goddess forbids everyone else from cutting into flesh, human or animal), so now the Kin are trying to recruit him back into their hive-mind by any means necessary. He is also hated by many townsfolk just because they're racist assholes, regardless of how many crimes the player does or doesn't do. There's really no way for poor Artemy to win, which heightens his protective instincts toward the few people who truly care about him.

Daniil Dankovsky

An upper-class doctor who cares about knowledge far more than people. He came to the town to inspect a very old citizen who was rumored to be immortal, but then quarantine was declared and all the trains home locked down. Now, he is turning his considerable intelligence and bureaucratic authority towards finding a cure for the Sand Pest- and perhaps a way to make people immortal, the goal he's pursued his entire life.

But this town is not like other towns, and Danii's refusal to believe in magic or appreciate Kin "superstition" may break him.

Clara

A small bald girl who woke up in a pit outside of town and decided she must be Jesus. She's having a bit of identity crisis, but her faith-healing powers are very real; all she needs to do is touch someone, and they are cured of anything- even the Plague.

Or they instantly fall dead.

There's a chance of that happening, too.

In spite of her questionably-evil powers, messiah complex and mysterious origins, Clara is a good (if extremely hippie) person. Most of her arc is about outwitting her "evil twin", a malevolent shadow of Clara who entered the town at the same time she did and is doing her best to make everyone think Clara is a murderer.