The Art Of… Pathologic

by Suzanne Verras

[divider] [dropcap]I[/dropcap]t’s the month of spooks! And what better way is there to celebrate the spookiness of October then to look at some creepy concept art? Today I’m going to introduce you to some of the concept art (and other art) made for the Pathologic remake by Ice Pick Lodge. This game and art surely fits the all dark and horrifying theme of the Halloween month.

Pathologic is a plot–driven open-world survival and adventure game that is coming for PC/MAC/Linux, PS4 and Xbox One. You choose between one of three characters and explore a plague barren town that will be destroyed in 12 days. No matter what you do or who you help or don’t help, it always ends in 12 days. The Sand Plague takes over the town district after district, and it will probably infect you in the end. It doesn’t necessarily have to kill you, but as soon as you have the disease, you’ll be a danger to others.

Pathologic is set in a very small town, it doesn’t even have a name, but it’s filled with secrets. It’s build upon strange traditions and you can choose to uncover what is going on, but it’s not necessary. There is a strange building near the town called The Polyhedron. The streets are filled with beggars and children infected by the plague. Some districts are blocked off, too dangerous to enter and for some reason there is a sacrificial ground in the center of town.

To uncover the whole story of Pathologic you have to play through the game a number of times, playing with different characters or making different choices. The game is filled with choices. Should you trade your new found gun for some bread of should you keep it and use it to invade a possibly not so empty house in a plague struck area of town? Will you help an incurable plague victim or kill him and steal his food? These choices and more are shown in the concept art below. Whatever your choices will be, the town will always be brought down by the plague in 12 days, but the choices you make do matter. You for example can risk your life be completing a side quest. The choice is all up to you.

Throughout the town there are numerous NPC’s you can help for side quests and the main quests. You can choose to be just a friendly helper or to uncover all of the town’s secrets. Every person has a story to tell and it is your choice to find out what it is. There is not enough time to get everything done. You can’t escape the fact that you have make choices.

If all this awesome art has peaked your interest in Pathologic there are still 3 days left to fund this bad boy. The developers at Ice Pick Lodge have already reached their $250.000 goal, but there is still some time to get to one of the stretch goals. Head over to their Kickstarter to help them right away!

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[facebook][tweet][Google][pinterest][follow id=”Cliqist” size=”large” count=”true” ] [author image=”http://cliqist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/suzanne.jpg” ] Suzanne Verras is a freelance writer and a university student from Leiden, The Netherlands. She is a video game enthusiast, but also loves movies and art. She has her own video game, film and art blog called Miss Lily Blogs where she posts all kinds of articles as well as her Let’s Plays. Her favorite games include Bioshock, Myst, Ratchet and Clank and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. In the future she hopes to be writing full-time and one of her dreams is to sell her artwork one day. You can follow her on Twitter: MissLilyTweets. [/author]