PC cult classic Pathologic 2 is getting a sequel with time travel

Pathologic 2 is a cult classic PC horror game, and it’s going to get a sequel. Publisher HypeTrain Digital announced Monday that Pathologic 3 from Russian developer Ice-Pick Lodge is in the works, and is set for release on Steam in 2025. In the first Pathologic, released in 2005, players could choose between one of three characters: the Bachelor, the Changeling, or the Haruspex. While Pathologic 2 does have a number in the title, it’s a remake/reimagining/redo of the first game, and defaults to having you play the Haruspex. Pathologic 3 is following this pattern but letting you play the Bachelor, which means that a potential Pathologic 4 will put you into the shoes of the Changeling. All three are doctors with unique backstories and connections to the town who seek to save it from a brutal plague (also class warfare) in 12 days. That premise will continue in Pathologic 3, but with a new time travel twist that’ll let the player rewind or fast-forward through those 12 days so that you can get the “best” outcome. While a time travel mechanic will be new for the sequel, there has already been time travel in the games. Pathologic 2 starts off with the Haruspex failing a run to save the town and requesting another, so time is reset. “We can describe the concept of this mechanic as surrealist time management. Our goal is to give the player a sense that time is more complex than we typically perceive it—as a linear path,” game director Nikolay Dybowski said in a press release. Another difference is how your character will be viewed by the town’s residents. In Pathologic 2, the Haruspex is on the run for suspected murder. In Pathologic 3, the Bachelor appears to become the town doctor. A press release says you’ll “immerse yourself in the role of a physician,” making health decisions for people in the town and fighting the plague on your own terms. The Pathologic series isn’t the most accessible. The gameplay is clunky, its story is abstract, and its characters are uncanny. That said, there are few PC games out there like it, both in its combination of horror, RPG, and immersive sim elements, and its crushing bleakness. If you’re interested, start with Pathologic 2 to experience the best version of its ideas. Alan Wake 2 is stuffed with PC tech. It feels like one of the true next-gen games that we’ve seen on PC, short of remakes like Portal RTX and updates like Cyberpunk 2077. From path tracing to frame generation to AI-powered denoisers, Alan Wake 2 shows off what PC has to offer in 2023, even if that means leaving less powerful rigs behind in this dust. Although the game itself is straightforward enough, its performance on PC is anything but. Alan Wake 2 is a stunning showcase with high-end hardware and all of the modern bells and whistles enabled, but it’s a slog on lower-end machines that fall outside of its demanding minimum hardware requirements. There’s good and bad here, and after spending some time with the game, we need to examine both. Remnant 2 is officially out after a three-day early access period, and PC players are already forming strong opinions. The game is remarkably demanding, despite the fact that it doesn’t include any ray tracing settings. On top of that, the developers insist that the game was designed with upscaling tools like Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) in mind, causing some backlash from PC players. I’ve played just shy of 16 hours during the early access period, including a full campaign run. Although Remnant 2 is demanding even on flagship hardware, you can push down most of the graphics settings without impacting the look of the game. Here are the best settings to get Remnant 2 into a playable state on PC.
Best settings for Remnant 2 on PC There are now a decent number of VR headsets on the market, and the newest headset on the block, the PlayStation VR2, is one of the most powerful in terms of technology. This upgrade from the original PSVR makes many improvements over the original design, including trimming down the necessary cables to a single USB-C. Being the only headset on the market made by a console maker, many PC gamers may be wondering if the PSVR2 would be a worthy investment if they could also use it on their PCs. If you’re mainly a PC gamer, or have yet to get your hands on a PlayStation 5, and are interested in the PSVR2, here’s whether or not it will work on other hardware.
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