Buka sends along word of plans for a new horror/adventure game in the works at developer Ice-pick Lodge called Pathologic due for release in the fourth quarter of this year:

Pathologic is a unique example of a dramatic game, which directly affects the player’s state of mind.

…In the depths of the Ancient Steppe appeared a weird town. Once a small drover settlement scattered around the monstrous Abattoir, it unexpectedly developed into a mysterious, isolated establishment with an odd social structure. This odd society has managed to survive for several generations. It could have continued to aspire, were it not for a sudden outbreak of some enigmatic, lethal and inescapable disease, which begins to mercilessly slaughter the denizens inhabiting the area. Even science has proven helpless in finding a cure, or at least providing some explanation.

… Three outsiders arrive in the contaminated town. The first was a highly-educated Bachelor with a ruthless manner of investigation, assigned by the provincial authorities. The second one is a far-sighted Ripper with a reputation of an ingenious surgeon, in search of his father's terrible heritage. The last character is an eccentric girl, possessing mystic healing abilities, that could become the town’s heavenly salvation were it not for the constant fear in her dejected eyes and fresh memory of the horrors of her recent past…

Each of them must survive in this hell and play a vital role in the fate of the doomed town…

One of them could be you. The show is about to begin.

The atmosphere of the game reproduces the tense feeling of constant danger, maddening awareness of the enemy’s invincibility. You’ll witness dreadful images of city agony, incessant death of the infected world and dramatic tragedies of the doomed people

Key features:

    • A bizarre combination of first-person game, role-playing features, non-linear plot and real time flow;
    • The town has a life of its own, it constantly changes and adequately reacts to the player's behaviour and random circumstances;
    • Well-balanced proportion of random factors and pre-arranged events;
    • Original enemy concept – omnipresent, omniscient, invisible infection;
    • 3 unique campaigns, several endings;
    • Original graphic concept and photorealistic portraits of NPCs;
    • A complicated system of context-sensitive music arrangement. Artistic sound direction;
    • A large variety of individual survival and resource-hunting strategies under the resource hunger conditions;
    • 3 heroes act independently: when one chosen, the two rejected heroes act on their own, plotting against the player.