Hello.
The release of Quarantine was a new experience for the studio. We’ve made demos before (The Marble Nest for example) but we’ve never gathered feedback this systematically. Hundreds of thousands of players tried the prologue, and we got to hear their thoughts: via the Steam community, on social media, and of course, in the survey. Quarantine helped us test new mechanics that will appear in Pathologic 3 and draw some valuable conclusions.
Even Quarantine itself, which we don’t plan to update further, received rebalanced difficulty, QoL improvements, and several HUD variants after launch. But our main goal, of course, was to figure out what and how to calibrate in the main game.
Oh, and by the way, add Pathologic 3 to your wishlist! It’s the easiest way to stay updated on development news.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3199650/Pathologic_3/
Hospital gameplay
The medical detective gameplay (examining patients and diagnosing them) is clearly the highlight of the prologue. That’s obvious from both the feedback and the survey ratings. Good news: there will be a lot more of it in the main game! Of course, getting to know eccentric townsfolk and grappling with the existential drama of human boundaries won’t go anywhere, but you’ll also have to engage deeply with the tragedies and illnesses of ordinary people. We can’t even say “way more than before,” because, well, this mechanic simply didn’t exist before.
In the full game, these diagnostic stories will be more freeform than in the demo (where we were teaching the player, so mistakes were practically not allowed). We’re already experimenting with ways to make symptom logging (and therefore diagnosis) more convenient and engaging.
Localization
Our plans haven’t changed: we hope to include English, Russian, German, Simplified Chinese, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese at launch.
This is the first time a Pathologic game will launch with localization beyond Russian and English. The script had a lot of words, and writing quality matters deeply to us. That makes localization hard, but we’re committed to making the game more accessible for a broader audience. If we manage to expand it further, we’ll let you know!
City traversal
The main question after Quarantine: what’s up with the city? Why couldn’t you move through it without loading screens? And how will that change in the full game?
…Why change a game where everything “worked”? Why not just write a new story in the same setting? We know some players would’ve liked that just fine. But for us that wouldn’t be enough. Not creatively (there’s already a game about digging through Gorkhon’s trash cans), and not commercially: sequels to indie games statistically sell much worse than the originals, and we’re making a sequel to a sequel. Just repeating ourselves? That’s a dead end.
But trying new things is in the studio’s DNA. And that led us to the idea of a new kind of game — about a person lost in time, with narrative structure and space-time torn to shreds. That presentation will stay. It’s a core part of the concept — it can’t be changed. (And technically, it can’t be reversed at this point.)
What will change in the full game, however, is the feel of the city. More specifically:
- Route choice — this already exists, but was limited in Quarantine. Navigating the city should always feel like a small puzzle for Dankovsky.
- Non-linearity — don’t forget, events will continue to occur simultaneously in different parts of the map. Even within one district, multiple things can happen — sometimes even conflicting ones.
- Location content and situations — a lot more, and far more varied. Quarantine was a parade alley: a glimpse at the game, not the game itself. Many features that will be in Pathologic 3 didn’t make it into Quarantine.
- City impact — the effects of your decrees will be visible. (Told everyone to wash their hands? They’ll be standing there, washing!) That’s also part of the city connection: issuing an order and seeing it come to life. It’s an important aspect of Dankovsky’s path.
- Immersion… well, let’s talk about that in more detail.
Immersion
While the Haruspex sank into the flesh of the city, the Bachelor sinks into both the city and his own mind. We believe it’s possible to create a consistent sense of presence — even without consistency in time and space. You can doubt where and when you are, and still not lose the thread of your thoughts.
That sensation is our goal in Pathologic 3.
Optimization
Even over a few Quarantine patches, we significantly improved performance. But the main round of optimization for the full game is still ahead. In other words — we’re planning for things to get much better.
Apathy/mania
Dankovsky’s mental state is a new mechanic. In short: we’ve seen that the overall concept works, but it’s not yet well-balanced (we’re working on it) or well-explained (we’ve improved it a bit with patches and HUD variants, and we’ll keep working on it). By release, we aim to fine-tune this “mental metabolism” so that it’s exactly as unnerving as we want: no more, no less.
Will there be an FOV setting in the full version?
Yes.
Will the content from Quarantine remain in the full game?
Originally, we planned to use Quarantine as the game’s intro. But we now believe we can make a smoother, prettier intro that introduces mechanics earlier. So most likely, some scenes from Quarantine will show up later in the game as flashbacks — but not at the beginning. As a complete experience, Quarantine will remain separate.
(Don’t worry — that means more Seraphima and Platon, more Inspector and Capital — not fewer!)
We’ll also give you a heads-up: the prologue’s store page will be taken down closer to the full game’s release.
Everyone who already added it to their library will still be able to play it — so make sure to grab this piece of the story while you can.
To sum up
Quarantine turned out to be an interesting and very useful experiment — one we hope will help make the full version of Pathologic 3 even better. Thank you to everyone who took part.
From now on, we’re focusing on further development of the full game.
The prologue will remain available until… well, that’s not important. We’ll notify you when it’s about to go.
Don’t forget to wishlist and follow the main game’s page so you don’t miss any news about its development:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3199650/Pathologic_3/
See you soon.
We’ll need a wider curtain for what comes next,
Ice-Pick Lodge