Developer Ice-Pick Lodge and publisher HypeTrain Digital have announced Pathologic 3: Quarantine, a sort of prologue episode for the main game that you'll be able to play for free next year.
In an announcement post, Ice-Pick Lodge describes Quarantine as a "free prelude" that's "not quite" a demo, although it has similarities to a demo. The studio compares Quarantine to The Marble Nest, a teaser released prior to Pathologic 2 that Ice-Pick described as a "mood piece".
Despite the similarities, Quarantine won't function in quite the same way as The Marble Nest; rather than being a self-contained story, it'll "showcase fragments of gameplay mechanics, set the stage for the story, and pull back the curtain a bit" with regards to Pathologic 3's world.
Quarantine will, according to Ice-Pick, tie into the events of the main game, and it'll "partially overlap" with Pathologic 3's intro, but it'll also give you the chance to see unique scenes you won't see in the main game.
You'll also get the chance to get your first glimpse of the Capital, where the Bachelor's lab is located, and you'll get to discover what drove the Bachelor to leave his lab. Along the way, you'll be diagnosing patients and trying to figure out their secrets as you go.
We don't have a release date or even a more specific release window for Pathologic 3: Quarantine yet, but it goes without saying that you can almost certainly expect this free teaser to arrive sometime before the game itself does.
Pathologic 3 was announced back in October, although technically speaking, it was actually revealed in July 2020 as an expansion to Pathologic 2 (which is itself both a remake of and sequel of sorts to the original Pathologic).
As such, in Pathologic 3, you'll play as Daniil Dankovsky, also known as the Bachelor. You arrive in a small town beset by the plague, and it's up to you to discover said plague's mysterious origins and see if you can put a stop to it.
Pathologic 3 is due to land on PC via Steam sometime next year. You can also wishlist the standalone prelude Quarantine via Steam if you want to.
