You probably haven’t played Pathologic, but maybe some pretentious gaming critic told you to. It’s a clunky game with bad animation and worse physics, but it’s become a cult legend for its clever writing and game design. It’s also set in a small town that will quickly be overrun by a deadly plague unless you can stop it. Which you can’t.
For reasons that baffle me, I started playing this after the real world was engulfed in the deadliest pandemic of my generation.
I am very late to the Pathologic party. Perhaps the last one in. I had never even heard about it until YouTuber hbomberguy uploaded a two hour video about it entitled “Pathologic Is Genius, and Here’s Why.” I’m sure it is, I thought, but that’s a lot of time for a game no one’s ever heard of. So, I put off watching it for a month or two. I almost forgot about it.
But when I finally sat down to watch it, I was convinced—very explicitly against the advice in the video—to play it for myself. Not just for a bit, either. I played all three of the playable characters to completion. I have 100 percented a game that less than 15 percent of players even make it through the first day on. A game widely known for being a plodding, uncomfortable slog that no reasonable person would willingly subject themselves to.
However, the pain is part of the experience, I was told. You’re meant to feel powerless. You’re meant to feel like all your efforts are futile. Somehow, the game makes failing at your quests feel satisfying. Or at least the dissatisfaction is meaningful. That’s the feeling I expected to get from this game.
I didn’t expect the wave of emotional nausea when one of my earliest quests was to prove to the people in charge that the very real pandemic that they know exists is real, so that they’ll do something about it.
