Pathologic 2 Reviews
A gruelling mystery game that smothers its big ideas with dour survival mechanics.
Pathologic 2 offers a hauntingly bleak tale, then does its best to stop you from experiencing it.
At its heart, Pathologic 2 is a frustrating game. Ten times more interesting than your average immersive sim (probably the genre it belongs), yet hundreds of times less inviting.
Pathologic 2 is a narrative-driven thriller that doesn't really care if you have a good time or not. Prepare to be eternally hungry.
A weird an unique game that may be too confusing for most of the players but manages to be almost unique in its kind.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Pathologic 2 is a surrealist drama wrapped in a survival game's tattered clothes. It's frustrating and haunting all at once. It's also one of the most atmospheric games ever made. Every element of Pathologic 2 – the persistent plague, delightfully twisted dialogue, and punishing survival mechanics – come together to form an intensely memorable experience. Is it fun? Not really. Is it brilliant? Almost certainly.
Pathologic 2 is a narrative triumph, but atrocious combat gets in the way.
The game is exhausting, it's difficult to be in it for a long time. But because of the deep atmosphere, vivid characters and mysterious plot, it clings and doesn't let go until the very end. The experience is uniquely interesting, but requires additional polishing.
Review in Russian | Read full review
The gameplay of Pathologic 2 is very barebones in favor of a story pretty difficult to understand. It's a very complex game, barely passable on the technical front, but with a great atmosphere.
Review in Italian | Read full review
I thought I would enjoy Pathologic 2, but its needlessly mundane and cruel systems take too much away from its otherwise interesting and strange world.
Thanks to its extraordinary aesthetic choices and his infinite variety of roleplaying approaches, combined with the depth and exquisite wickedness of survival mechanics, Pathologic 2 is confirmed as an original, atypical, dreamlike, violent and masochistic experience.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Pathologic 2 is the ultimate acquired taste - unforgiving, byzantine, and eye-opening.
Playing Pathologic 2 feels like suffering, and it's meant to be that way.
Pathologic 2 is a punishing, twisted game that is burdened by some intentionally poor mechanics that, while interesting to analyse, detract from the game itself
Pathologic 1 & 2 are masterpieces of games as art. They are cruel and disturbing, but ask unique questions and do things you won't see anywhere else. These are singularly unique experiences that are worth suffering through.
Pathologic 2 presents a weird, engaging, and wholly unique world to uncover and explore, but makes the act of playing it a clunky and laborious chore.
Pathologic 2’s outstanding story and thought-provoking journey suffer from outdated execution.
Pathologic 2 is a deeply weird game, with a Mayakovskian cast of characters, plopped into an apocalyptic Bertolt Brecht play set deep in the Russian Steppe. And while the actual gameplay maybe disappointing or frustrating to some (it was to me), I can't help but be compelled by a game so enthusiastically bizarre.
Pathologic 2 is survival horror at its most challenging and rewarding. A horror game which plagues you both literally and psychologically. It certainly isn’t for everyone but it is a testament to what games can be at their best. Story telling gold. Whilst it isn’t fun, it isn’t meant to be.
Underneath it all, Pathologic 2 is an engaging and disquieting game, one that has the potential to be something really quite special. But its survival mechanics are unnecessarily suffocating and take much of the joy out of it. Until Pathologic 2 is cured of that particular problem, be prepared for an uneven slog.