Pathologic 2 is one of the games I'm most looking forward to in 2018. It's the remake of creepy adventure game Pathologic, which came out in 2005 and is considered one of the major influences on the modern survival horror genre. The remake smashed its Kickstarter target earlier this year before releasing a suitably weird trailer, and now developer Ice-Pick Lodge has put out a gif-heavy progress update and gone in-depth on many of the game's systems, including combat and autopsies.

First, let's recap what the game actually is: you're a medic trying to save a town in which a plague is running riot (hence the need for all the autopsies). You only have 12 days to do it, and you have eat, drink, and sleep as well as avoid the infection yourself.

So, onto the update. Shooting is not going to be central to the game, but the team want to make sure the guns are weighty, and they're "not yet happy with how it feels", they said in the update. The gif below does look like it needs some refinement, but I like some of the detail in the reload animation, such as the character pulling back the hammer before each shot (click the full-screen icon in the top right to see it in action).

I like the look of the game's looting system, too. Lootable containers are split into several compartments, each of which can behave differently. One might require a key, for example, or one might contain the plague infection, introducing an element of risk.

The autopsy system from the original game has been refined as well. There will be "no more looting bodies as if they were cupboards"—instead there's an 'autopsy interface' that you'll interact with, which basically means you're clicking and dragging organs. Lovely.

The game's reputation system has been similarly tweaked. In the original your global reputation went up and down depending on your actions, but now that's specific to neighborhoods within the town. So, as you move round the map people will react to you in different ways.

Lastly, the team gave an update about the progress of the game's setting. The town is fully built, but around a third of it still needs refinement, and they still need to create abandoned 'burnt-out' districts that were destroyed in an attempt to contain the plague. "The sense of place is arguably one of the most crucial elements for a game like Pathologic 2, so we’re making sure every corner of the Town feels right," the team said.

Clearly there's lots of work still to do, but what they have so far would suggest they're still on track for a 2018 release. For the full, gif-heavy update, click here.

Pathologic is a first-person psychological horror-adventure survival RPG sort of thing—it's hard to nail it down, really—that was originally released in 2005 by Russian indie studio Ice-Pick Lodge. It was intensely, impenetrably weird, as Phil noted a few years back when the studio launched a Kickstarter campaign for a remake, an effort that proved hugely successful. But then the studio opted to update and re-release the original game as Pathologic Classic HD, while still remaking the original. 

The thinking behind the simultaneous remaster and remake is that the "new" Pathologic will be "reconstructed" in various ways, while the Classic HD version will give people the opportunity to experience the original weirdness, untouched but for better graphics and a proper English translation. Which is a fine idea, but also one that opens the door to potential confusion. To avoid all that publisher TinyBuild announced today that the remake has been renamed to Pathologic 2. 

The updated game description on Steam sounds innocuous enough: "Pathologic 2 is an Open World Survival Horror game where you fight  against a devastating plague. As the only medic around, save the town  before it’s fully consumed." But there's a catch: You only have 12 days to do what needs to be done, whatever that is, and you'll have to eat, drink, and sleep while you do—all while avoiding the plague yourself.

The new gameplay trailer released today cuts a little deeper into what Pathologic is really like, especially once it gets rolling, with the plague doctor-looking thing, and the guys with the faces, and the autopsy of the dead child—which isn't at all graphic, but still far from the sort of thing you're going to see in the next Bethesda mega-hit. 

TinyBuild also said that it's "working with the team at Ice-Pick Lodge to switch development to a more open approach." That means, among other things, that alpha builds will soon be going out to Kickstarter backers and other supporters, so the studio can "gather feedback from fans, and adjust the direction of development based on this feedback." The gameplay seen in the trailer comes from the demo built for PAX West, which begins tomorrow; TinyBuild CEO Alex Nichiporchik said that if it goes over well, it will be released to backers sometime after PAX.