Pathogenic demo turns Spore-like cell stage into a polished roguelike shooter

Pcgamer reports that Pathogenic, a roguelike twin-stick shooter inspired by Spore's cell stage, has a free demo available and already feels surprisingly polished.

The game casts you as a microscopic parasite invading a human body, with undulating "secretors" that act as guns and hostile antibodies as foes. Combat is responsive yet swimmy, and the core loop centres on a creature editor: you can move organelles across nodes to change shooting, movement and how buffs interact via pathways. Defeating strong enemies yields new parts and stolen DNA, and collecting enough plasmid fragments lets you evolve into new forms with different stat modifiers and node configurations.

Quality-of-life touches include a subtle UI that keeps the map, ammo and relevant organelles visible and instant fast travel to cleared rooms. One playthrough described in the preview ended in the stomach but earned fragments that unlocked alternate starters such as a fungal spore, and the writer recommends trying the demo while the game remains in development.

Key Topics

Culture, Pathogenic, Spore, Aberrant Labs, Roguelike, Twin-stick Shooter