Pathologic 3 - Return of the Bachelor

[HoboForEternity]

Bachelor Daniil Dankovsky is a young doctor from the capital. His search for the secret of immortality brings him to a remote town, gripped by a mysterious plague that will destroy it in 12 days. Now it’s up to him to explore the town itself, its past, present, and future — to find answers to his numerous questions and try to stop the relentless epidemic.

(At least… that’s what he thinks this story is about. What it’s supposed to be about. What it’s always been about.)

You are a real doctor. Your tools are knowledge and science. Examine patients and diagnose diseases. Cross-check symptoms and prescribe treatments. Enforce your rules: impose quarantines, confiscate medicine, vaccinate the population, deploy patrols, and impose curfews. See how your choices change the town, even if it means being hated along the way.

You have only 12 days to stop the lethal plague. But in your hands lies the most valuable resource—time. Travel into the future to witness the worst outcomes. Correct mistakes in the past to change them. Bend the fates of people around you to save or condemn you—in search of answers.

(How is it possible? What *is* time?)

Delve into the darkest corners of the Town-on-Gorkhon to fight the disease. Face the Plague head-on. Cleanse the infected streets. Burn what can no longer be saved. What was lost in the fire will be found in the ashes.

Dankovsky is a sharp mind in search of the truth, willing to do anything to find it. Anything you see can tell a story and become a piece of your mental map of the world. Explore the town for new insights, notice details, and connect the dots. Uncover the secrets of the town’s inhabitants. Shape their stories, decide their fates, and talk to their shadows.

Spoiler

!!!???

 

[Konjad]

The fact that Ice-Pick Lodge has no idea how to write dates infuriates me more than potential info excites me.

 

[Terenty]

The fact that Ice-Pick Lodge has no idea how to write dates infuriates me more than potential info excites me.

7.10.24? What's wrong with that?

 

[HoboForEternity]

The fact that Ice-Pick Lodge has no idea how to write dates infuriates me more than potential info excites me.

7.10.24? What's wrong with that?

Probably murrican brainrotted dating system mm/dd/yy

 

[RoSoDude]

Now they're just trolling
https://x.com/IcePickLodge/status/1842574313473651022

(Implicit confirmation it is Bachelor announcement with his time manipulation stuff)

 

[Harthwain]

The fact that Ice-Pick Lodge has no idea how to write dates infuriates me more than potential info excites me.

Whatever do you mean? If anything "X" is a clear indication this means a month, which helps a lot, because sometimes it is not so obvious (when you have both day and month within number 12 range).

 

[illuknisaa]

What if it's not a date but coordinates? You know "X marks the spot".

 

[Harthwain]

There is a clock in the upper-left corner of the picture.

 

[duskvile]

They should make immersive sim.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

They should make immersive sim.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

They should make immersive sim.

What do you think P2 is?

 

[SixDead]

7th October - clever date, 1 year after Israel massacre and Putin's birthday

 

[Infinitron]

Bachelor Daniil Dankovsky is a young doctor from the capital. His search for the secret of immortality brings him to a remote town, gripped by a mysterious plague that will destroy it in 12 days. Now it’s up to him to explore the town itself, its past, present, and future — to find answers to his numerous questions and try to stop the relentless epidemic.

(At least… that’s what he thinks this story is about. What it’s supposed to be about. What it’s always been about.)

You are a real doctor. Your tools are knowledge and science. Examine patients and diagnose diseases. Cross-check symptoms and prescribe treatments. Enforce your rules: impose quarantines, confiscate medicine, vaccinate the population, deploy patrols, and impose curfews. See how your choices change the town, even if it means being hated along the way.

You have only 12 days to stop the lethal plague. But in your hands lies the most valuable resource—time. Travel into the future to witness the worst outcomes. Correct mistakes in the past to change them. Bend the fates of people around you to save or condemn you—in search of answers.

(How is it possible? What *is* time?)

Delve into the darkest corners of the Town-on-Gorkhon to fight the disease. Face the Plague head-on. Cleanse the infected streets. Burn what can no longer be saved. What was lost in the fire will be found in the ashes.

Dankovsky is a sharp mind in search of the truth, willing to do anything to find it. Anything you see can tell a story and become a piece of your mental map of the world. Explore the town for new insights, notice details, and connect the dots. Uncover the secrets of the town’s inhabitants. Shape their stories, decide their fates, and talk to their shadows.

 

[Terenty]

They straight up call it Pathologic 3? Interesting

 

[RoSoDude]

I fucking called it, I've been saying they should call it Pathologic 3 for like a year at this point.

You are a real doctor. Your tools are knowledge and science. Examine patients and diagnose diseases. Cross-check symptoms and prescribe treatments. Enforce your rules: impose quarantines, confiscate medicine, vaccinate the population, deploy patrols, and impose curfews. See how your choices change the town, even if it means being hated along the way.

I also predicted correctly based on the Marble Nest that managing pandemic response policy would be a big part of the Bachelor campaign. This is something you only did as part of the story in Pathologic 1, but there was zero choice related to it, just classical adventure game quests. In the Marble Nest they had little teasers for this; you'd meet with orderlies, soldiers, and committees about decisions you made in the past (before the DLC starts) to contain the outbreak, even making a few decisions in the present. Quarantining areas, closing shops, establishing isolation wards. None of it led to anything meaningful though, I'm really interested to see what it will be like in a fully-fledged game.

You have only 12 days to stop the lethal plague. But in your hands lies the most valuable resource—time. Travel into the future to witness the worst outcomes. Correct mistakes in the past to change them. Bend the fates of people around you to save or condemn you—in search of answers.

So the time travel mechanic will allow you to look forward in time to see the consequences of certain actions which I think is a very manageable AND interesting way to do it from a design perspective. Their previous notions of doing a nonlinear story with disorienting time skips didn't seem workable for a game, but projecting futures is a cool and feasible idea that could lead to interesting gameplay. I presume a lot of this will be based on the "town management" stuff mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Dankovsky is a sharp mind in search of the truth, willing to do anything to find it. Anything you see can tell a story and become a piece of your mental map of the world. Explore the town for new insights, notice details, and connect the dots. Uncover the secrets of the town’s inhabitants. Shape their stories, decide their fates, and talk to their shadows.

This seems similar to what they discussed in the original studio update about the Bachelor scenario development. I guess it did make it in some form.

Thus, we should be waiting for something like the Marble Nest?

No. Even developing a “low-key Bachelor” we had to create not a piece of old game, a full-fledged gameplay. We’d taken in account mistakes of developments, and this time started without pernicious arrogance, trying to do it the right way: with creating a bunch of gray box prototypes. The first version of pure cabinet gameplay we prototyped in a really low-key way: in fact, the whole story there should have been taking place in one location we called the Stillwater. During the episodes of strolls through the city players could receive impression phrases. It would appear when some urban detail fell into the player's scope, scattering in a cloud of phrases, as in the BBC Sherlock. Players had to catch them like mosquitoes with the further haul result appearing in the mind map.

All in all, we barely created a Fruit-ninja with thoughts and phrases that players had to immediately evaluate and find the necessary ones were playing a role of fruits. If the phrases didn’t fit, players would have to go hunting it again. This kind of gameplay still seems beautiful: maybe some kind of it would be presented in a current version of the game.

As a joke, I called it the combination of Her Story and IT’S WINTER. We wanted to show the intellectual hero and display the process of critical thinking through the game interface. In essence, it was a puzzle that tests memory, attentiveness and the skill of combination impressions.

 

[notpl]

The fact that Ice-Pick Lodge has no idea how to write dates infuriates me more than potential info excites me.

7.10.24? What's wrong with that?

Probably murrican brainrotted dating system mm/dd/yy

The correct way to relay that date in English is "October 10th, 2024." Why shouldn't the abbreviated form keep that order?

 

[Jaedar]

This should be good. First game of 2025 to look forward to?

 

[Skinwalker]

The fact that Ice-Pick Lodge has no idea how to write dates infuriates me more than potential info excites me.

7.10.24? What's wrong with that?

Probably murrican brainrotted dating system mm/dd/yy

The correct way to relay that date in English is "10th of October 2024."

ftfy

 

[Necrensha]

This is literally the only game I'm looking forward to.

 

[Dark Souls II]

Bruh. Based.

 

[Jinn]

Between this and KCD II, 2025 is already going to be an amazing year of gaming. I've been waiting for this for so long. I hope it sells fantastically for them Pathologic 1 and 2 are a couple of my favorite games of all time.

 

[Konjad]

lmao, so Pathologic is now remade in Pathologic 2, 3 and 4 most likely.

 

[Robber Baron]

Should be thankfull no time jannies are involved in this multi-part remake
Although when you think about it
Time jannies would fit

 

[Odoryuk]

Wait, they changed a publisher? I wonder if there were any rights fuckery with the previous one.

 

[Fedora Master]

How is this an RPG