History VideoGame / Pathologic2

* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers: The list that Artmey inherits from his father has eight names. Seven of them are the names of some children from the Town, while the eighth is simply a Steppe symbol that refers to the 'udurgh'. Discovering what the udurgh is is one of the major plot points of the game.

* SaveScumming: No longer possible, unless you're ''very'' dedicated or don't mind losing progress. There is no quicksave function, and you can only save in a few specific locations. The intent was to prevent this behavior entirely by making it prohibitively difficult and not really worth the effort. You ''can'' reload old saves, but unless you're in the same room as a save device you'll likely lose a lot of time and progress. A loading screen tip also advises against this: "Don't abuse time-turning. Sometimes the condequences of our failures can be just as compelling as our successes."
** Additionally, [[ContuiningIsPainful death punishments]] persist across all saves in a profile. [[LampshadeHanging Mark Immortell will even chide you]] if you declare your intent to save scum your way out of this.

* BagOfSpilling: You can't carry items from the prologue into the main game. You also can't carry items into [[spoielr:the [[NoGearLevel Abattoir]]]], but you can carry [[spoiler:the Living Blood]] out.

* FindTheCure: A big part of the third act of the game. Artemy is certain that a cure is possible, but his attempts to brew treatments with infected organs is a failure. It is only after he obtains [[spoiler:"Living Blood" from Shekhen]] that he is finally able to make a true panacea. This actually happens only halfway through the game, but RealityEnsues: A single vial of cure can't stop an outbreak. The rest of the game revolves around Artemy's attempts to find larger sources of the key ingredient.

** Anna Angel is now a misophobe, which is an aspect of her personality not present in the original ''VideoGame/Pathologic''.
** As part of Artemy's AdaptationRelationshipOverhaul, Bad Grief is now one of his childhood friends, significantly fleshing out his backstory and personality. In ''VideoGame/Pathologic'' he was just a gang leader with no meaningful backstory.
** In ''VideoGame/Pathologic'', Vlad Jr. [[spoiler:knew the Termitary was infected and deliberately locked the Kin in to die, demonstrating his professed kindness towards them was a sham]]. Here, [[spoiler:he did ''not'' know about the plague in advance and locked the Termitary because his father lied to him about the Kin rioting. When he discovers the truth, he is overcome with guilt and voluntarily gives himself up to the Kin]].
** In ''VideoGame/Pathologic'', Oyun was [[spoiler:an evil and power-hungry man who killed Isidor to retain his power over the Kin, and attempts to kill Artemy several times under the guise of "trials"]]. In this game, Oyun is not antagonistic towards Artemy at all, and [[spoiler:though he did still kill Isidor, he did so for a noble reason rather than a selfish one: stopping Isidor from infecting the Town with sand pest]].
** In ''VideoGame/Pathologic'', Captain Longin mutined against General Block and caused terrible chaos in the final days, seving as the Bachelor's FinalBoss. Here, [[spoiler:the mutiny is staged -- Longin is actually a loyalist of Block's, and only pretended to mutiny to give Block an excuse to leave without shelling the Town]].

* AdaptationRelationshipOverhaul: In the original game, Artemy's only friend in town was Stahk Rubin, who refused to speak with Artemy for most of the game because he believed Artemy murdered Isador. Now, Artemy had a childhood posse of himself, Rubin, Lara Ravel, and Bad Grief. Over the course of the game, Artemy can try to rekindle the friendship between the group, and seems particularly protective of them.

* AffablyEvil: [[spoiler: The Fellow Traveller is pretty friendly for the literal personification of Death...]]
* AffectionateNickname: All of the Haruspex's childhood friends call him Cub (except for Rubin, since he hates you). Isidor also had several nicknames with the children of the town, such as Grandfather Burakh.

* AgainstMyReligion: A number of activities are considered taboo by the Town, based on the beliefs of the Kin, stemming from the worship of the Earth as a mother diety. These include digging holes, cutting into flesh, and possession of sharp objects.
* AIRoulette: The game uses dicerolls to decide which characters become infected with the Plague.

* AllJustADream: The first leg of the game, up until you board the train. Interestingly, you're told the prologue was a dream during a section that Artemiy later theorizes was ''also'' a dream.
* AllThereInTheManual: ''The Art of Pathologic 2'', the art book for the game contains small tidbits about the characters and the setting.

* AnimalMotifs: The Kin revere bulls, and as such bulls are often used as a symbol of the Kin.
** The tonwsfolk are likened to a flock of birds and many of them are even given birds' names
* AnotherDimension: [[spoiler: The Abattoir and the Underground may or may not be this. Time seems to work differently underground. If Lika the Doghead really did go underground then what he saw [[GoMadFromTheRevelation changed him]], to say the least.]]

* AnyoneCanDie: Anyone can catch the Sand Plague and anyone can die from it.

* TheArk: Georgiy Kain explicitly calls the Town this, in dicussing his brother Simon inviting several geniuses to the Town like the Stamatin brothers and Yulia Lyuricheva.

* ArtEvolution: Pathologic 2 is a massive improvement on its predecessor, with gorgeous, striking visuals everywhere you look.

** Guns. They're powerful and have a good range, but they are rare and expensive, so is their ammo, they are prone to jamming as they wear down from use, and the items needed to repair them aren't exactly common either. They're also noisy and will likely just ''draw'' more hostile attention to you.

* BagOfSpilling: You can't carry items from the prologue into the main game. [[spoiler: You can't carry items into the [[NoGearLevel Abattoir]], but you can carry the Living Blood out.]]
* BaitAndSwitch: On Day 6, you have the option to talk to Bad Grief about blowing up the railway tracks to prevent the Inquisitor from arriving in Town. He tells you to meet him on the tracks at night, but when you get there [[spoiler: it becomes clear that Grief never had any intention of doing this at all, and mocks Artemy's stupidity in expecting he would have dynamite on him just because he's a thug]]

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Both the Diurnal and Nocturnal Ending, albeit arguably less so in the former. In the Diurnal Ending, you save the town, which include every surviving named character. Everyone is planning for the future, cautiously optimistic. The sky is blue and the atmosphere is warm and peaceful. However, you know this was accomplished at the cost of dooming both the Kin and the [[GeniusLoci Earth beneath the town]], something Aspity will be sure to remind you of if you talk to her, provided she survived. Given however that the Mistresses' influence is still around, it's implied it's not a true TheMagicGoesAway situation. The Nocturnal Ending is the opposite. The Kin, people and creatures with no place in the future, will thrive. Silhouettes of majestic beasts loom in the sky. The Earth lives and Aspity is ecstatic. But this comes at the cost of the town. Almost every living named character is forced to flee the town, potentially against the Haruspex's wish, possibly to their death. The night sky and still present (though now harmless) infection set a melancholic tone. Compared to the Diurnal Ending, the whole town feels empty and quiet.]]

* BetterOffSold: Both played straight and averted/justified. Your main avenue of acquiring resources is by looting, whether that's from people's cupboards or public trash cans. Most of the items you find are worth so little money that you might as well not bother. However, these items are truly valuable when it comes to the barter system. Every subtype of NPC has a different set of "trash" items that they consider valuable for whatever reason, and you can offer them up in exchange for items the NPC has that you might want--children will accept bugs and toys (obvious enough), sharp objects (taboo and thus enticing), and nuts (believed by children to house souls). Adults might want things like bottled water (in the case of hungover drunks) or mechanical parts (soldiers who need to maintain their equipment), although bartering with adults is a bit of an edge case, as the items they're willing to barter for are generally of some use to you as well. In this situation, what is and is not vendor trash becomes a matter of the player's opinion. If you've got so much water that you can't carry it all, perhaps you'll gladly throw some of it away in exchange for that drunkard's tourniquets; on the other hand, you may find yourself unwilling to part with your repair parts even if you'd really like to get that smoked meat in exchange.
* BlackMarket: A couple. You can buy weapons from Bad Grief, the Shady Shop next door will always trade with you regardless of currency and [[spoiler: always trade in currency, even in the late game]], and you can sell organs to Var.
* BloodlessCarnage: There is a notable absense of blood when killing enemies.
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Many of the Kain's grand plans for pushing past the boundaries of physical limitations as well as the rationale for the Steppe customs don't seem rooted in conventional ideas of Good and Evil.
* BookEnds: Both the first and last days have quests that involve surgically extracting something from a local thug. It's something Artemy can comment on.
** [[spoiler: The Diurnal and Nocturnal Endings have you stepping off the Train just like you did on the first day]]
* BoringButPractical: The knife. You can get one for free as early as Day 1, it's easy to keep in tip-top shape with the relatively common whetstones and chisels, and two strong stabs are enough to kill most human enemies.
* BottomlessPits: [[spoiler: The Abattoir has one.]]

** The game opens with you on a stage asking Mark Immortell, the director for a chance to do the play over again.

** The Reflections of characters telling the audience of the true nature of those characters.

** [[spoiler: In the Diurnal and Nocturnal endings, you can speak with the Devisers who appear to be children, but in reality are the game's developers talking directly to you, the player.]]
* BrickJoke: The game has a particularly cruel instance of this trope. The second time you die, Mark Immortell will decide that not only he will take away another sliver of health from you, he will also steal your ability to hug people. This just seems like flavor text because you can't hug people anyway, and Artemy himself even lampshades what a silly limitation that is. [[spoiler:Near the end of the game, you can have a conversation with Lara that ends with you attempting to [[VideoGameCaringPotential comfort her]] by giving her a reassuring hug... only to realize to your horror and confusion that you ''can't'' and some unseen force is preventing you from doing so.]]

** On Day 1, you can witness villagers burning a herb bride at the stake. Their paranoia- and the effects of twyre pollen- have convinced them that she's the Steppe Demon who killed Isidor.
** It's lampshaded that Aspity is closer to what the vigilantes were looking for, but obviously they couldn't recognize what she is because, you know, ''magic''.

** In the hide-and-seek quest on days 2 and 3, tagging a child will play a sound effect from the original game. The same sound effect plays if the player switches "intended difficulty" back on after switching it off.

* CampfireCharacterExploration: Artmey can reconnect with his childhood friends Lara, Stakh, and Bad Grief around a fire at night.

** Tradition versus Progress - The game explores the conflict between maintaining a way of life from the past and the pressures and advantages of modernizing. Some of the other conflicts of the game like the children of the Town staying in the Polyhedron in a perpetual childhood without having to grow up, the Kin wishing to preserve their traditions, the Olgimskys exploitation of the Kin, and even the [[spoiler: final choice of the game]]
** The game uses the framing device of Mark Immortell staging a play to explore themes of free will, fate and dealing with failure.
** As the game's art book says: "This is a game about boundaries. Humans transcending their own limitations...". This is most evident with the Kains and the characters aligned with them. A conversation with Georgy Kain explicitly discusses the idea of transcending boundaries.

** On Day 2, you can see children acting out some of the events of Day 1 (the burning of the Herb Bride, the Herb Bride holding the Bull's skull, and children ganging up on the child of the man being ganged up on in the exact same location on Day 1). It's clear that the children don't really understand what they'e playing. It comes up later too, when the children make a game out of the arsonists burning infected people in the street.
** This trope is averted by the child gangs present in Town. These gangs have their own politics, history and rules and is treated seriously by the game and Artemy, who expresses surprise at how intense children's games have become. Some of the Town's children also talk about things that children their age wouldn't typically know about.
* CleanCut: Averted if the durability of your cutting implement is low.
* ChoiceAndConsequenceSystem: Of two flavors. First, some of your daily quests have more than one option for completion. Which path you take will generally affect something in the future, with consequences ranging from minor (you get some money or an item) to major (preventing a character's death, for instance). Second, your choices in dialogue and trades with townsfolk will have an effect on your reputation in the district. If you choose friendly dialogue options or give people extra in barters, your reputation will be improved as a result.

* CivilWar: A civil war is taking place in the wider world, although the Town seems mostly unaffected by it. Depending on player dialogue choice, Artemy may have been involved in the conflict prior to the story's events.

* {{Conlang}}: The Steppe Language is contructed, influenced heavily by Buryat, as well as Mongolian and Tibetan
* ContinuingIsPainful: When you die in this game, you don't simply get a "Game Over" that prompts you to reload. You just wake up later, losing a good chunk of time, and suffering a reduction to your health and survival meters that are all '''permanent'''. Worse, SaveScumming doesn't prevent this; every death you suffer is automatically saved to your profile, so you'll still suffer from diminished health for the rest of your game when you reload an earlier save.
* CrapsackWorld: The Town just doesn't seem to be a great place to live in, even before the plague, and the wider world doesn't seem to be in much better place, given that there's a war going on, and some political instability.
* CreatorBacklash: In-universe, Mark Immortell has rather a low opinion of the performances he has staged so far.

* CreepyCrows: On Day 3, just before the outbreak, crows can be seen circling the Cathedral. Artemy can talk to three bystanders: a Stone Yard man, a Steppe man and a child who explain why the crows are a bad omen from each of their perspectives. According to Bad Grief, there used to more harmless birds in Town, but lately they have all been replaced by crows.
* CrisisPointHospital: The makeshift hospital in the Theatre is in progressively worse shape everyday, with more and more dying and dead people. One late-game quest has you identifying people who are still alive among all the corpses.
* CruelToBeKind: Isidor once quarantined a group of people until they died, so their infection would not spread to anyone else.

* DarkestHour: Day 11. The Fund has closed because General Block has given up any hope of treatment, all the children have been evacuated which deprives you of one of your easiest sources for food and medicine, [[spoiler: Aglaya Lilich is dead and every single child on your list has been infected by the plague]]

* DeathByAdaptation: [[spoiler:Unlike the first game, Aglaya dies on the last day of the Haruspex's scenario, and there's nothing you can do to prevent that.]]

* {{Determinator}}: Every character with a name- and some who don't- have something that they never stop wanting to live for. Well, they ''are'' Russian.

* TheDogBitesBack: The workers in the Termitary get fed up with the Olgimskys' treatment of them and demand payback.

* DownerEnding: The game ''starts'' with one. It's the twelfth and final day of the Plague, everyone is dead, and the military has decided to destroy the town. You start the game proper by declaring your intent to try again and do things right this time.
** It is possible to lock oneself out from either valid ending, trapped inside the theater and unable to save the town. [[spoiler:It's caused by making a deal with the Stranger to go easy on you when dying. Instead of a conclusion, the game cuts to you and the Stranger on a train, just like the beginning of the story.]]

* DreamingOfThingsToCome: The prologue features Artemy awakening in the theater, with all of his Adherents dead, the other two doctors hysterical, and the town doomed. He then awakens on the train into town, the train’s other occupant saying he was having a nightmare.
* DueToTheDead: Isidor's funeral on the morning of Day 2

* EarlyBirdCameo: Peter Stamatin and Anna Angel are among the crowd in front of Isidor's house before Artemy is properly introduced to them.
** Artemy also sees them in the prologue, along with [[spoiler: Foreman Oyun]], the Three Mistresses and the Bachelor and the Changeling.
* EarlyGameHell: Zigzagged. On one hand, just like in the first game, Artemy begins the campaign dirt poor, on the brink of death, nearly starving, and with almost the entire town out to kill him. On the other, people don't turn hostile to Artemy immediately, which means you're given a little time to prepare yourself accordingly, it's a lot easier to move around the town without getting attacked, and you can't technically die on the first day thanks to Bad Grief keeping an eye out for you.
* EarthyBarefootCharacter: The Herb Brides are a very literal example.
* EldritchLocation: The Town ''was'' just a town once, apparently, but now it's an "ark" filled with all kinds of prodigies and literally magical people. And the steppe outside it is even more surreal.
** The Termitary is a beef slaughterhouse that's also a temple. Even some people in-universe don't understand how that's possible.
* EmergencyAuthority: Inquisitor Aglaya Lilich, and later General Block
* EmergentNarrative: The random nature of infections combined with it being in the player's hands as to how/whether to treat infected [=NPCs=] means that the outbreak of the plague will claim different victims each playthrough
* FamilyOfChoice: The "blood" section contains characters that Artemy considers to be family. The only character who is related to him by blood is his [[spoiler: dead]] father. Aspity, his spiritual older sister, starts there as well, despite the fact that they have no blood relation. Over the course of the game, all seven of Artemy's wards and his three friends can make their way there as well as he begins to consider them family.

* FantasticRacism: There's tension between the humans and the Kin; the latter are treated like slaves in the Termitary, blamed for the misfortunes happening all across the Steppe, and even believed to be the cause of the Plague. [[spoiler:It turns out that's not too far off the mark. The Kin are aligned with the earth, and the earth is using the Sand Plague to wipe out the humans. Even in the early parts of the game, there's talk among the Kin of them killing the humans.]]

* FindTheCure: A big part of the third act of the game.
* FireWaterJuxtaposition: [[spoiler: On Day 11, Artemy must find three couriers bearing orders to destroy the Polyhedron. Two of them were already intecepted by the other playable characters. The Bachelor shoots the courier and burns the orders just before you find him. The Changeling tried to heal the courier but failed, and the orders got lost in a nearby stream.]]

** If the player chooses to destroy the Polyhedron, conversations with specific characters on the final day will hint at potential plotlines or events in the Bachelor's and Changeling's storyline:
*** The Changeling will reveal that forces up above (presumably the Powers That Be) were waiting to meet her. Destroying the Polyhedron has prevented this meeting from occurring.

** The Udurgh, whose identity you spend most of the game puzzling out, is perpetually stated to be "In Danger" on your list, which only happens to people who are at risk of catching the plague due to residing in an infected district. [[spoiler:The Udurgh is the town itself, which the Sand Plague is constantly infecting.]]

*** The play for day 1, dedicated to introducing Artemy, has diagrams and equipment from his lair around him. To his left is the [[spoiler: dissecting table used in the Abattoir sequence.]]
*** The pantomime for day 4 takes place in a graveyard where two characters are discussing Artemy's dead father. A giant horn swings above them. [[spoiler: It turns out this is the murder weapon.]]
*** In day 5's play, the glowing curtain from Stakh's hideout is situated directly behind the Bachelor, hinting that [[spoiler: he was Stakh's collaborator]].
*** The play for day 6 is the Inquisitor discussing criminal acts. She ends by referring to Capella without elaboration. The next play is the Inquisitor stating that "the only real crime is betraying someone who trusted you." Later that day, Capella [[spoiler: says that she will take the children from Artemy, which can be seen as an act of betrayal]].

** In the final moments of the introduction sequence, the Fellow Traveler will turn into an Executor- [[spoiler: the same Executor form that the Sand Plague uses to taunt Artemy.]]
*** His dialogue foreshadows his true identity of [[spoiler: the plague as well, as he "hopes he can manage to meet his toll" once he arrives in the town.]]
** In an odd dream sequence, Artemy sees Lara talking about eating people. He comes to the conclusion that Lara is going to kill someone. [[spoiler: He's right. On day 10, she will attempt to kill General Block.]]

* FriendToAllChildren: The Haruspex can be one, depending on your dialogue choices. You'll always have the option to be kind and friendly to every child you talk to, and doing so is usually rewarded as the "correct" decision. There's also the fact that your Adherents are all children.

* GiantAnimalWorship: The Kin reverse Bos Turokh, the World Bull. [[spoiler: A manifestation of Bos Turokh, or possibly the deity itself, appears in the Nocturnal Ending.]]

* GodOfGood: According to Steppe belief, Bos Turokh, the World Bull is the central deity.

* GoodPaysBetter: Completing your hospital task for the day, and giving at least three people antibiotics nets you a large and extremely helpful amount of food and money and a boost in reputation. Rescuing babies from infected houses yields similar rewards.

* GreekChorus: The Townsfolk are said to fulfil this purpose, commenting on the decline of the Town through the game. Beak and Talon also serve as this, especially during the pantomime rehearsals.

* TheGrimReaper: The Executors, especially Talon and Beak bring this trope to mind, but actually, [[spoiler: The Fellow Traveler is implied to be a personification of the death the plague will bring]]

* HeartOfTheMatter: [[spoiler: In the Abattoir, Artemy crafts a Heart which speaks to him with Mother Boddho's voice out of random objects he finds, signifying that he now truly understands the Lines. After this, he jumps into the bottomless abyss in the Abattoir and can speak to a large heart, which is the heart of the Town itself.]]

* HopeSpot: [[spoiler: After journeying through the Abattoir and obtaining up to six vials of Living Blood, the Plague breaks its own rules and immediately infects all the children on your list.]]

* InventoryManagementPuzzle: Much the same as Marble Nest. You have three compartments with differing amounts of space, and each object takes up a given amount of inventory space. Equipped clothing and weapons don't take up inventory space. Most objects stack and money doesn't occupy a slot, but there are caps to the stacks. One such cap that the player may encounter early on relates to water bottles: you can only stack 10 in one space. This may come as a surprise to veterans of the series who are used to carrying dozens of bottles in one slot without difficulty.

* ItIsBeyondSaving: Several characters feel this way about the Town. [[spoiler: You can decide this for sure with the ending choice]]
* JustifiedSavePoint: The various clocks around the game serve as this, [[spoiler: including the giant pendulum in the Cathedral]]. Conversation with Victor Kain implies that the Cathedral produces time which is distributed by the clocks, making saving an in-game feature.

* KilledOffscreen: Characters who die of the plague do so offscreen. [[spoiler: If you don't brew the panacea by Day 7, Rubin dies offscreen. If you don't flee the town with her, Aglaya Lilich is found dead on Day 11.]]

* KillItWithFire: After a few days, Firestarters start running into infected districts, hurling Molotov cocktails at every infected person they come across (which could potentially include you) out of some desperate belief they can curb the Sand Plague by burning it. Later on, the Army ups the ante by bringing in flamethrowers. [[spoiler:It turns out they have a point, as fire can in fact reduce the infection - which can prove useful to you should you be unlucky enough to catch the plague.]]

* LikeBrotherAndSister: Lara and Artemy. Artemy can call her "abgai," which means sister, and call her sister in their day 11 conversation. Lara refers to them as "siblings in suffering."

* TheMagicComesBack: [[spoiler:In the ending where the Polyhedron is spared, not only will the assorted miracles of the earth remain in effect and thrive under the new conditions, but long-extinct beings like the aurochs return to the world and the inhabitants of the Polyhedron enter into a deeper stage of [[BreakingTheFourthWall fourth wall-breaking]] enlightenment.]]
* TheMagicGoesAway: [[spoiler:If the Polyhedron is destroyed, this seems to be the case at first. All the miracles of the earth begin to die. That includes the miraculous healing blood, the twyre herbs, supernatural creatures like the odonghs and herb brides, Clara's powers, and the Sand Plague itself. However, the Mistresses still retain their abilities, implying that while Mother Boddho's children are doomed, there remains strange wonders in the world.]]

* MaliciousSlander: The deaths of [[spoiler: Isidor Burakh and Simon Kain]] whips the town into a frenzy, desperate to persecute someone for the crime. After blaming and attacking the steppe people for a while, everybody decides that ''you'' did it. Your reputation in every district plummets to "hated" until the matter's resolved a few hours later, but some folks will hold the grudge. Rubin's lingering resentment is especially notable, since the Bachelor went to some length to convince him of your innocence.
* MemorialStatue: Mistresses Nina Kaina and Victoria Olgimskyaya have special tombs and giant statues to commemorate them.

* MercyMode: Die enough times, [[spoiler:and the Stranger will offer to undo all the negative effects of death for you. It's a trap; taking it will lock you into the game's worst ending]].
* MetaGuy: Many of them: the most prominent is Mark Immortell, who appears at the beginning and when the player dies to "recast" Artemy, because the role is too important to flub.

** If you save the Polyhedron, [[spoiler: the miracles of the kin stay in the world, but those not tied to the Kin are forced to walk across the marshes into the steppe, not even aware of the Haruspex, into what's implied to be the afterlife. The Town and its outsider people die, but the Kin thrive. Those in the Polyhedron begin breaking down as the fourth wall breaks down with them.]]

** If you make a deal [[spoiler:with the Stranger: The Theater will not release you, as you corrupted the grand design by [[EasyModeMockery asking for mercy]] and the Stranger reveals himself as the Plague, thanking you for allowing him to follow [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou you home]]]].

* {{Mythopoeia}}: The Kin believe in an earth deity, Mother Boddho, and that she is a living, breathing thing. They believe that all living beings are created from the earth. This is why digging into the ground and cutting into flesh is massively taboo in the Town. They also believe in a world bull, Bos Turok and a death god, Suok. There are myths surrounding these figures in the folklore of the Kin. [[spoiler: She isn't just real, she's dying and taking the entire town with her.]]

* NewsTravelsFast: Rumours surrounding Artemy's part in Isador's death spread quickly on Day 1. While confined to only the district you're currently in and some neighboring districts news of your deeds, either good or bad spread instantly.

** [[spoiler:In particular, Lara gets it into her head to turn her home into a shelter for the displaced on Day 4, and requests that you deliver a barrel of water to her. The only barrel you'll be able to find is one filled with dirty water. This gives you a choice: you can either deliver the water to Lara as is, or report it to the Bachelor. Do the former, and her district will get infected the next day. Do the latter, and he'll have all barrels in the central part of town destroyed, clean and dirty alike, leaving everyone with less water to go around]]. As it is, the best resolution for this quest is to not do it at all.

* NintendoHard: Have fun balancing 4 different survival meters and navigating the giant maze of plague clouds and unreliable [=NPC=] schedules that is the Town.

* NoHeroDiscount: Your status as protagonist or doctor does not exempt you from the wildly fluctuating prices of items.
* TheNondescript: The Fellow Traveller uses a male NPC model commonly seen in the game, despite the unique role he plays.

* NoOSHACompliance: Stairways in the Town's 'Superstructures' - The Polyhedron, the Termitary and the Stairways to Nowhere do not have railings. You take fall damage in this game.
* NoticingTheFourthWall: The game begins with Mark Immortell chastising the player for how badly they played the role of the Haruspex, before relenting on one more time. Whenever Artemy dies, Immortell "recasts" him, a new actor taking the role. [[spoiler:On Day 11, the player's successor appears early. The player can feign Artemy's confusion or have a chat with "Artemy" wherein he complains about the successor being paid in advance.]]

* OneMansTrashIsAnothersTreasure: You'll soon learn which items are valuable to the different kinds of townsfolk, and which items they offer in turn.

* PursuingParentalPerils: Through the course of the game, Artemy begins to take over for his father in combating the Plague, looking after the Town's children and becoming a leader to the Kin. All of these can end up getting him killed in one way or another.
* PushoverParents: It's implied that the reason the children in the Polyhedron are free to stay there is because the Polyhedron prevents their parents from intervening.

* RandomNumberGod: Every NPC in an infected district on a given day has a risk of becoming infected. At midnight, the Plague "rolls the dice" to see who catches it and who doesn't. The odds of infection are determined at midnight. Infected individuals also roll to survive at this time.

** The serums you test before [[spoiler: you realise it's a dead end.]]
* SadisticChoice: A big part of the game is having to choose between looking out for youself and helping other people. Do you risk getting the plague, going into an infected building to rescue a baby or walk past, ignoring the baby's cries, and missing out on a sizeable reward? More specifically, [[spoiler: do you take the plague in place of Murky, saving her but putting you in a very difficult situation if you have no cures, or let her die, saving yourself?]]
* SaveScumming: No longer possible, unless you're ''very'' dedicated or don't mind losing progress. There is no quicksave function, and you can only save in a few specific locations. The intent was to prevent this behavior entirely by making it prohibitively difficult and not really worth the effort. You ''can'' reload old saves, but unless you're in the same room as a save device you'll likely lose a lot of time and progress.

* TextileWorkIsFeminine: If you need to get your clothing mended, your best bet will be to ask an adult female NPC for repairs.

* TrainJob: Artemy and Bad Grief plan to blow up the train tracks so prevent the Inquisitor from arriving in Town. [[spoiler: It doesn't work out]]

* UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: The Kains' driving motive. [[spoiler: and as it turns out, Isidor was aligned with the Kains on this as well.]]

* VideoGamesAndFate: An important theme present in the game. The game discusees fate in the opening, with the Fellow Traveller and the first dream Artemy has on Day 1. [[spoiler: Aglaya Lilich is implied to know that she is a character in a game and fights against her fate. After talking to her, Bad Grief realises that as a character, he has no real agency which upsets him greatly.]]

** Houses in post-infection burnt districts can also be looted without any loss in reputation, but generally contains knife-weilding bandits doing the same thing as you.
* VideoGameTime: One in-game day is roughly two hours at first. Towards the end of the game, time passes faster.

** Day 9 when [[spoiler: The Abattoir is finally open, and it is revealed that the Plague is indeed caused by the Earth as a punishment for humans becoming too individualistic. After this, Artemy has a dream in which Isidor reveals that he was patient zero for the Plague and wanted bring the infection to the Town on purpose as a test. And ''then'' the Plague breaks all its rules and [[FromBadToWorse infects all the children.]]]]
* WhatTheHellPlayer: If you fail to complete the story by the deadline, [[spoiler:you're not treated to a scene depicting your failure to save the town. You're instead brought back to the theater where Clara, Daniil, Mark Immortell, and the Executors admonish you for your incompetence and inability to finish the play on time.]]

* AWorldHalfFull: The [[spoiler: Diurnal Ending]] feels this way. Characters are shaken by the recent events, but are cautiously optimistic about what the future holds.
** More broadly, the plague itself exists not because the world ''lacks'' wonder, but because it has so many that Earth can't hold them all. There is no [[NonStandardGameOver official]] ending that doesn't involve preserving something beautiful.

* YouMonster: If you mess up a quest or otherwise screw someone over, you can expect them to give you an earful about it. For example, on day two you can encounter a group of Kin who ask you to give Big Vlad money from them in exchange for refuge in the Termitary. If you fail, they'll be disappointed, but they'll be quite unhappy with you if you fail ''and'' keep their money. [[VideoGameCaringPotential Giving them their money back earns you their thanks (and an achievement).]]
* YourNormalIsOurTaboo: Any kind of digging and cutting is deeply taboo in the Town owing to the townsfolk absorption of Steppe practices surrounding worship of the Earth as sacred.

* HundredPercentAdorationRating: Isador Burakh, Simon Kain, Nina Kaina, and Victoria Olgimskaya were beloved by the Townsfolk.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Both the Diurnal and Nocturnal Ending, albeit arguably less so in the former. In the Diurnal Ending, you save the town, which include every surviving named character. Everyone is planning for the future, cautiously optimistic. The sky is blue and the atmosphere is warm and peaceful. However, you know this was accomplished at the cost of dooming both the Kin and the [[GeniusLoci Earth beneath the town]], something Aspity will be sure to remind you of if you talk to her, provided she survived. The Nocturnal Ending is the opposite. The Kin, people and creatures with no place in the future, will thrive. Silhouettes of majestic beasts loom in the sky. The Earth lives and Aspity is ecstatic. But this comes at the cost of the town. Almost every living named character is forced to flee the town, potentially against the Haruspex's wish, possibly to their death. The night sky and still present (though now harmless) infection set a melancholic tone. Compared to the Diurnal Ending, the whole town feels empty and quiet.]]

* KnightTemplar: The Inquisition led by Aglaya takes a very hard stance on crime, to the point where it practically believes that AllCrimesAreEqual, punishing each criminal caught with death. The Army is just as representative of this trope, as it arrives with the very real goal to level the entire Town-on-Gorkhon just to keep the Plague from spreading.

* TheMagicGoesAway: [[spoiler:If the Polyhedron is destroyed, then all the miracles of the earth go with it. That includes the miraculous healing blood, the twyre herbs, supernatural creatures like the odonghs and herb brides, Clara's powers, and the Sand Plague itself.]]

** If you save the Polyhedron, [[spoiler: miracles stay in the world, but those not tied to the Kin are forced to walk across the marshes into the steppe, not even aware of the Haruspex. The Town dies, but the Kin thrive. Those in the Polyhedron begin breaking down as the fourth wall breaks down with them.]]

* {{Mythopoeia}}: The Kin believe in an earth deity, Mother Boddho, and that she is a living, breathing thing. They believe that all living beings are created from the earth. This is why digging into the ground and cutting into flesh is massively taboo in the Town. They also believe in a world bull, Bos Turok and a death god, Suok. There are myths surrounding these figures in the folklore of the Kin.

** Aspity's description of Earth's body inverts a quote from ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreed''.
-->Everything is true and nothing is permitted.

* AbsoluteCleavage: The Herb Brides, all of which appear in tattered dresses that barely cover the bare essentials (except for a few, who are just plain naked). One of them explains their clothes fray and tear from their dancing.

* KnifeNut: As the Plague spreads, bandits and looters ditch the GoodOldFisticuffs and start fighting with knives instead. This is bad for you, because knife attacks do a lot more damage and can't be blocked. It also shows how bad things are deteriorating because in the Steppe, cutting flesh is ''extremely'' taboo.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: The Town is home to a wide array of characters, each with their own motivations and complex webs of relationships between them.

** The Prompters that serve as the tutorial, like a propmpter reminding an actor of their lines.

** The convenient spotlights that appear occaisionally around the town, sometimes out of nowhere.

** After the play at the end of Day 1, you can have a conversation with Mark about this. Interstingly, this is the only time you can speak to him after any of these performances.

* AcceptableBreaksFromReality: A few, despite the otherwise realistic gameplay. Time stops in dialogue screens, which one could argue is a necessity, given the text-heavy nature of the game. It also takes no time to consume food/medicine or wear protective equipment. Brewing tinctures out of herbs also occurs instantly, although using the larger alembic to make serums will take some time.

** Regardless of how cruel and unforgiving the game claims to be, it's very difficult to genuinely get yourself in an inescapable death spiral when it comes to your resources. Sure, you might have to ignore your quests for the day because you need to dig through every trash can in town in order to find enough [[VendorTrash needles and marbles]] to barter for food and medicine, but you ''can'' find enough materials to scrape by.

* VendorTrash: Both played straight and averted/justified. Your main avenue of acquiring resources is by looting, whether that's from people's cupboards or public trash cans. Most of the items you find are worth so little money that you might as well not bother. However, these items are truly valuable when it comes to the barter system. Every subtype of NPC has a different set of "trash" items that they consider valuable for whatever reason, and you can offer them up in exchange for items the NPC has that you might want.
** Children will accept bugs and toys (obvious enough), sharp objects (taboo and thus enticing), and nuts (believed by children to house souls).
** Adults might want things like bottled water (in the case of hungover drunks) or mechanical parts (soldiers who need to maintain their equipment).
*** Bartering with adults is a bit of an edge case, as the items they're willing to barter for are generally of some use to you as well. In this situation, what is and is not vendor trash becomes a matter of the player's opinion. If you've got so much water that you can't carry it all, perhaps you'll gladly throw some of it away in exchange for that drunkard's tourniquets; on the other hand, you may find yourself unwilling to part with your repair parts even if you'd really like to get that smoked meat in exchange.

* AdultFear: Depending on Artemy's choices, he can become a father figure for most of the children on the List, and his dialog options reflect his growing attachment to them, calling them "my children" and telling the Inquisitor [[spoiler: he can't run away with her]] because he has his kids to take care of. So of course [[spoiler: the manifestation of the Sand Pest decides to infect all of them at the same time out of spite. Even if you save every bottle of living blood to make the panacea, unless you've gotten a shmowder too, you won't be able to save them all.]]

** Orange - Blood Layer, Zurkh Tinctue, Monomycinium.
* {{Conlang}}: The Steppe Language is contructed, influenced heavily by Buryat, as well as Mongolian and Tibetian

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Some well-meaning things you do will only make the situation worse. [[spoiler:In particular, Lara gets it into her head to turn her home into a shelter for the displaced on Day 4, and requests that you deliver a barrel of water to her. The only barrel you'll be able to find is one filled with dirty water. This gives you a choice: you can either deliver the water to Lara as is, or report it to the Bachelor. Do the former, and her district will get infected the next day. Do the latter, and he'll have all barrels in the central part of town destroyed, clean and dirty alike, leaving everyone with less water to go around]]. As it is, the best resolution for this quest is to not do it at all.

* ParentsAsPeople: On returning to the town, Artemy learns that his father Isador Burakh dealt with the first outbreak of the plague five years prior to the events of the game by quarantining the crude sprawl, condemning everyone inside to a horrible death. This causes Artemy some distress, as it goes against the idealistic vision he had of his father. Additionally, [[spoiler: it is revealed that Isador was patient zero of the plague, and intentionally spread it to the town, further muddying Artemy's feelings towards him.]]

* EmergentNarrative: The random nature of infections combined with it being in the player's hands as to how/whether to treat infected NPCs means that the outbreak of the plague will claim different victims each playthrough

** Day 9 when [[spoiler: The Abattoir is finally open, and it is revealed that the Plague is indeed caused by the Earth as a punishment for humans becoming too individualistic. After this, Artemy has a dream in Isidor reveals that he was patient zero for the Plague and wanted bring the infection to the Town on purpose as a test. And ''then'' the Plague breaks all its rules and [[FromBadToWorse infects all the children.]]]]