Pathologic Classic HD Windows, RTX game

Pathologic Classic HD

Ice-Pick Lodge | Good Shepherd Entertainment | Released 2015

The original Indie Cult Classic returns fully restored, and more evocative than ever.

Pathologic Classic HD is the Definitive Edition of the original Cult Classic Psychological First-Person Survival game. The game represents a unique and unforgettable experience as it transports players in a weird town which crouches, ominous, in the far reaches of an ancient steppe. It was once a small drover settlement, huddled around a monstrous abattoir—but something about the butchery it was near has changed it. It has developed an odd social structure over the course of several generations. It could have quietly continued along its weird way, but a sudden outbreak of an unknown and inevitably lethal disease has decimated the citizens. Prayers did not help. Science did not help. So, finally, they have turned to outsiders for help: three of them enter the town in hope of finding a cure or—failing that—an explanation. The first outsider was a ruthless investigator, assigned by local authorities. The second is a far-sighted Ripper who has used his extraordinary abilities to gain a reputation as an ingenious surgeon, who has come to the town in search of his father's terrible heritage. The third—and last—outsider is an eccentric girl rumored to have mystic healing abilities; she may become the town's salvation were it not for the constant fear that plagues her, the memory of the horrors of her recent past.

On the surface, Pathologic is a first person horror adventure game where you control one of three "heroes." Dig deeper, however, and you’ll find an experience that will affect your emotional and psychological state. In the world of Pathologic you’ll find yourself in situations where morals and good deeds are meaningless in the face of raw despair and endless need. Talk to the denizens of the town and decide for yourself if you wish to ease someone else’s pain or save every bit of precious medicine to protect yourself from the invisible and inexorable plague. Become witness to the miasma of horror as the plague begins to overcome the town.

Brand New in-house English script: For the first time ever, the game has cast off the major issue that had previously disallowed international audiences from accessing it.
Brand New Voice-overs.
New content: A certain amount of text that had previously been cut from the international version of the game have now been restored
Updated textures and higher resolutions support.
New visual effects.
Newly Included Fan-Made Polish translation: thanks to the hard work and generosity of Jakub Derdziak & Aldona Derdziak.
An Italian translation, kindly donated to us by the original translators of the game, Stefano Gaburri and Claudio Todeschini.

An indie cult classic.
12 days in a plague-ridden town. Time is running, and mostly it’s running out; numerous events unfold, whether you’re there to witness them or not.
70+ hours of real-time gameplay without grinding or repetitive quests. As time goes by, more and more things happen, inviting you to participate and change the course of events.
3 playable characters with 3 unique storylines. The Bachelor’s, the Haruspex’s, and the Changeling’s plots are interconnected, but every side of the trilemma is represented separately via unique events, quests, dialogues, and subplots.
The plot is critically acclaimed and often regarded as the high point of the game. It’s not just about the fate of the dying town—it’s about an ideological conflict, represented by a multitude of characters and factions, each with their own idea of what life, death, and miracles are.
An open-world game. While the plot is there to grab you, the town has no artificial boundaries: you are free to explore it from day one, carving out your own story.
Survival is tough. The dying town demands that you constantly keep an eye on your status, maintaining a full belly and decent immunity. That will require tough choices.
Communicate, barter, rob, or steal. There are many ways to acquire your bare necessities, each of them with its own benefits and drawbacks.
The atmosphere of bleakness and despair without cartoonish evil or bad guys. Playtime is over—there will be no jump scares or simple solutions. You will have to do it the hard way.

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Pathologic: Relapse: 1.0 Release Article!

Jan 31 2021 Pathologic: Relapse 1 comment

Pathologic: Relapse: 1.0 Release!

Hey all! I'm back with another first for ModDB - this time, the first mod for Pathologic Classic HD! Introducing - Pathologic: Relapse, an overhaul for Pathologic that aims to improve visuals of critical items in the game alongside updated sounds and more. This has been the product of a number of months of work by a few people interested in polishing up this cult classic.

Credits right off the bat go to the following:

Kralich - Lead and implementation
Sl0th - Experimentation and research
Flashi0Z - Voice acting
Aloe-Falsa and somevideoguy - Tools for extracting game files and repacking string data

Let's get into the details!

Visuals - Weapons

In deciding where to put time sprucing up visuals, the firearms in the game seemed like the obvious choice. They're some of the most notable items obtained and getting them felt as if it could be more rewarding to the player. All weapons therefore received a visual upgrade, as well as muzzeflashes for the main three weapons.

-The revolver has had a reskin, doubling the resolution and adding in lots of updated details sourced directly from the real life weapon (a Webley-Fosbery)

-The rifle has been reskined with double the resolution, AI-upscaled textures, and revised details with real reference from the real-life weapon (a Berdan No.2 Carbine)

-The shotgun (in Relapse, we've nicknamed it the Samopal after the files in the game as it has no real-life counterpart) has had revised textures - AI upscaled, with added engraving and shotgun shells retextured from real-life 16 gauge shells. Also, added detail overlays to enhance the detail on the texture!

-The double-barrelled pistol (a Remington Model 95) has been retextured, with AI upscaled textures and improved details from reference images of the real-life equivalent

-The revolver, rifle, and shotgun have all had their muzzleflashes updated to better fit the graphics of the game, as well as the rifle receiving its own unique muzzleflash since it previously shared the revolver's

Examples:

Berdan No.2 Carbine

Webley-Fosbery Revolver

Samopal Shotgun

Remington Model 95

Revolver Muzzleflash

Rifle Muzzleflash

Shotgun Muzzleflash

Visuals - Misc

Besides the weapons, a few backend visuals have been changed in some way.

-New logo for the project!

-Modified main menu screen with new logo

-Added a unique loading screen tip to each of the seven loading screens - helping instruct new players and remind more experienced players of parts of the game

Examples:

New Menu screen

Mime loading screen

Bachelor loading screen

Sounds - Weapons

Along with a visual upgrade, all weapons also received new sounds! These were designed to make their firing sounds and reload sounds more satisfying. The weapons are incredibly rare anyway, so they may as well be satisfying to use.

-Revised firing sounds for the revolver, overlaying real-life recordings of revolvers and other weapons to create a meatier sound. In keeping with the gun having a longer barrel, the sound is more of an explosive hiss

-Improved revolver reload sound FX

-Revised firing sounds for the rifle, including heavier bass and beefier weapon shot effects with some mechanical undertone to give weight to the gun

-Improved rifle reload sound FX

-Revised shotgun firing sound, having a bigger bang and deeper bass for a more explosive SFX fitting of the gun's ammunition

-Improved shotgun reload sound FX

-Improved empty sound effects for all guns

If you'd like to hear these in action, watch the video below:

Sounds - Events

Besides weapon sounds, a few other event-based sounds were modified.

-Taking cues from Fallout 3 and 4, the Reputation sounds have been replaced with musical cues instead of the stock-sound effect babies - a sour note from the Andrei Kabak track is used for reputation loss, whilst a positive note from the Changeling's ending is used for reputation gain

-Replaced the butcher death sound with a new take by a voice actor since this death sound was reused for another enemy type

Gameplay - Speed

After some testing, game speed has been increased by 20% and clock speed slowed down by 20%. In effect this allows the player (and other NPCs) to move a bit quicker and pursue their objectives with the same amount of time they had before. This is in response to opinions that the walking speed - and the game - is far too slow. Perhaps the strongest criticism of Pathologic is that moving from one location to another is a chore. Moreover, the need to travel across town sometimes multiple times in one day can be frustrating for newer players. Pathologic is, of course, a challenging game - but I felt there was a difference between challenging and frustrating. You can always modify these commands in the init.cfg if you'd prefer to play with the rest of the changes in this mod without the speed increase. Weapon reload sounds have had to be manually sped up by 20% to account for this so they still play in time.

Gameplay - Text

Pathologic's English translation was famously obtuse. Classic HD's is considerably better, but many awkward phrases and difficult lines of dialogue are still present in the game's files. Moreover, the weapons could do with updated details to make them fit better into the world.

-Extra details have been added to all weapon text, noting the real name of the weapon (if applicable), as well as changing a few details to be more accurate. The Shotgun, has it has no real-life equivalent but is named Samopal in the game files, has been nicknamed the Samopal in-game too.

-A lot of the English dialogue (several thousand lines) have had their translations improved, fixing grammar and punctuation as well as adjusting dialogue so it's more readable. Some really clunky phrases were rewritten. Due to the sheer number of lines in this game, this treatment could not be feasibly applied across the entire narrative, but hopefully enough were touched that a general improvement in conversation readability is visible

Examples:

Misc - Backend

Included two save files - one is the Haruspex with his three firearms, and one is the Changeling with her Derringer, both with ammo, for testing purposes. Simply delete these if you want a fresh game without these saves included.

Wrapping Up

That's all for Relapse's 1.0 release! Technically, any textures in the game can be improved, as well as any sounds, but I feel I've touched upon the main bases I wanted to here. I would like to make deeper changes like to game mechanics or models, but unfortunately I don't think the tools are available for such changes. If the capability for deeper changes - or if I feel a particularly rough visual from the original or phrase was not fixed up in Relapse - there may be further updates, but for now, this is my only planned release. Hopefully this encourages a few people to return to the game, especially if you're like me and found your first playthrough a real struggle to get through. The changes above make it more playable, and I've been enjoying the game a lot more.

Thank you for reading, and enjoy Pathologic: Relapse!