Pathologic (2014)

A plague breaks out in a remote steppe town full of weird local traditions. Three healers try to fight it: a rational scientist from the Capital, the son of a local shaman, and a blessed fool who has no memory of herself. Each of them has their own idea of how the terrible disease came to be, and what is real magic to one of them becomes backwards superstitions to another.

Pathologic, the remake of a ruthless and critically acclaimed Russian survival adventure game from 2005, allows you to take on the role of any of these doctors in order to overcome the invisible evil in the Town and inside your very body. It won’t be easy: first and foremost you’ll need to avoid death, trying not to succumb to the disease, to bandits, hunger, and fatigue; scavenging and bartering for bullets, bread, and milk. You’ll be hard-pressed for time, and as days fly by, it’ll become increasingly more difficult to evaluate if you can share a pack of pills with a stranger in need or if you should keep it for yourself to survive longer.

Your untimely death would mean the end of the Town—the Army is already here, ready to burn it to the ground so that the Plague doesn’t spread. But there are so many people here with their thoughts, ideas, and beliefs; there are children who play strange games, there are physically impossible buildings, obscure steppe traditions, and mysterious creatures. Sooner or later all of them will confide their deepest secrets in you. Perhaps that’s reason enough to make the miracle happen—to save the Town.