There is no clear way to categorize plague doctors, who are sometimes viewed as harbingers of death and sometimes seen as refugees from disease. Seen throughout history since the 1300s, plague doctors are recognizable by their cloaked costumes, wide-brimmed hats and signature beaked mask. With their masks full of sweet-smelling medicinal herbs, they often attempt to cure epidemics through questionable methods like bloodletting, leeches, and frogs.
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Their depiction within video games is equally perplexing. Though often ascribed a gray morality and a familiarity with poisons, they vary immensely from title to title. This list showcases the ten most fascinating plague doctors within video games, who range from saviors to slaughterers.
10The Plague Doctor - Vigil: The Longest Night
The Glass Heart Games 2020 indie title Vigil: The Longest Night involves playing a character named Leila, the last member of a tribe of light warriors called the Vigil. Faced with defeating eldritch horrors in a world of perpetual night, Leila encounters several malefactors including the Plague Doctor.
Initially seen as the savior of the town of Maye by quarantining and treating patients in the local asylum, the Plague Doctor is, in actuality, trying to resurrect a goddess by experimenting on the townsfolk. A master of noxious combat and perhaps an eldritch creature himself, the Plague Doctor blitzes the player with his knife skills and poisonous concoctions.
9The Doctor - Plague Road
Developed by Arcade Distillery, the 2017 indie game Plague Road is a tactics title that follows a post-apocalyptic plague doctor as he explores his ruined world in search of the home he left behind. With each progressive area becoming more infernal than the next, the Doctor must test his mettle against the cataclysmic landscape.
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With other characters to recruit and skills to level up, this Doctor must fight against abominations warped by the plague to reach the city center, where his hidden past can be discovered and reconciled. Bringing a rougher and more combative air to the plague-doctor aesthetic, the Doctor deserves his place on this list.
8Plague Knight - Shovel Knight
The beloved Shovel Knight, released by Yacht Club Games in 2014, hosts our next masked miscreant. One of the eight villainousOrder of No Quarterwho serve the Enchantress, Plague Knight is a slippery alchemist who fights using explosive potion bombs.
Crazed and arrogant, he considers himself a true scientist and looks down on his peers in the Order.
Plague Knight is playable within his own Shovel Knight side-story Plague of Shadows, where he seeks to topple the Order of No Quarter to source ingredients for an Ultimate Potion. He hopes that drinking this potion will increase his physical strength and make him more appealing to his assistant, Mona, with whom he’s smitten.
An eclectic villain, Plague Knight brings zany energy to the plague doctor’s name.
7The Leech - Wytchwood
Wytchwood is a charming 2021 indie game developed by Alientrap that explores crafting. Throughout the game, you play as a Witch tasked with collecting souls to awaken a mysterious Sleeping Maiden, exploring the storybook countryside, and encountering fascinating characters as you craft enchantments.
One of these souls is the mysterious Leech, a doctor treating several patients for plague in a collective sick-house.
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Upon finding out that the Leech’s patients are not improving from their ailments, the Witch is tasked with investigating the situation and confronting the mysterious matron. Though she doesn’t wear a bird’s mask, it’s clear to see that Leech is influenced heavily by plague doctors.
6Julian - The Arcana: A Mystic Romance
An unusual addition to the list, this plague doctor is the only romanceable option on the list. Hailing from Arcana, a mobile game dating simulator inspired by the tarot, Julian is one of six characters that you may fall in love with.
Born to merchants and a worldly soul himself, Julian begins the game accused of the murder of Count Lucio, the ruler of Vesuvia.
Julian is brooding but charming with a checkered past. Having treated many patients as a doctor during the Red Plague before fleeing Vesuvia, Julian’s memories and relation to other characters are as murky as you would expect for a plague doctor. It’s up to you todiscover if he is boyfriend material or a wicked doctorplagued by wrongdoing.
5Trousseau - Octopath Traveler 2
The final boss of Castti’s route in Square Enix’sOctopath Traveler 2, Trousseau takes the plague doctor moniker to one of its darkest places. Initially an enthusiastic member of Castti’s traveling troupe of doctors, Eir’s Apothecaries, Trousseau is corrupted by horrific knowledge in the Book of Night, which was given to him by a mysterious figure.
With his morals twisted, Trousseau concludes that life is meaningless and death is salvation, proceeding to conjure poisonous rain to wipe out entire villages and ‘save’ their citizens. However, taking up the mantle ofCastti and her cohort, you can go toe-to-toe with Trousseau’s fearsome array of tinctures and show what it means to truly extend a helping hand to all in need.
4Oswald Keller - The Plague Doctor of Wippra
The star of the brief but powerful indie game The Plague Doctor of Wippra, released by Electrocosmos in 2022, fills the next slot on the list. Saddled with curing patients in a 14th-century German town overcome by the Black Death, Oswald Keller is perhaps the most ordinary plague doctor featured here. Lacking the iconic bird mask and any magical abilities, he is simple and realistic.
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The game involves examining patients and their larger societal context, as Wippra is rife with superstition and religious zealotry. While other games take a grander approach, this small but powerful game takes a stab at capturing the intricately human story of what true doctors experienced throughout history.
3The Warden - The Serpent Rogue
Developed by Sengi Games, The Serpent Rogue is an action-adventure game about alchemy. Playing as a plague doctor known only as The Warden, you are tasked with confronting the wicked Serpent Rogue and its Corruption that threatens your homeland.
Through gathering resources and crafting alchemical potions that can manipulate enemies and allies, The Warden leads a group of alchemists committed to peace.
Able to shape-shift, summon creatures, inflict status effects, and resurrect the dead, The Warden’s power is limited only by his recipe book and his resources. His impressive breadth of conjuration and unique presence place him on this list.
2Corvus - Thymesia
Perhaps the most adept combatant on our list, Corvus is the mysterious protagonist of the 2022 OverBorder titleThymesia. Victim of a plague that has left him part-human and part-raven, Corvus explores a desolate world riddled with plague in search of answers about his past and a cure for the disease that inflicts the world.
Able to harness diseases in combat as well as wield 21 differentPlague Weaponsfrom curved sabers to his own feathers, Corvus is a fearsome combatant exploring a lonely and harsh world. While he is agile and aggressive enough to qualify as a rogue or a warrior, Corvus harnesses the spirit of a plague doctor expertly as well.
1Plague Doctor - Darkest Dungeon
Armed with questionable healing vials and noxious attacks,Darkest Dungeon’s Plague Doctor places in the final position. A grim and bleak game, Darkest Dungeon takes a heavier view on classic RPG elements, adding variables and afflictions like stress-related heart attacks and famine as your party quests to discover the mystery beneath the Ancestor’s Mansion.
One of eighteen character classes, the Plague Doctor functions well as a supporting character. She utilizes Noxious Blasts, Emboldening Vapors, and Blinding Gas to disorient and stun opponents and Battlefield Medicine to stitch up allies and cure their bleeds and blights.
Capturing both the murky dual essence and darkness inherent to the plague doctor archetype, Darkest Dungeon’s incarnation flies the highest.
