I’m a little worried about A Plague Tale: Requiem’s stealthiness, but there’s still a lot of potential for its story and features.
I loved Plague Tale: Innocence. Despite the simple moment-to-moment gameplay, he has become one of my favorite games of 2019 thanks to great art direction, great performances, and a compelling story. I’m very curious to see how the story unfolds in Requiem, but the gameplay (including its flaws) feels a little off. that too got used to seeing. Most of these issues were easily overlooked in 2019 when he seemed to be punching Asobo Studio far beyond its weight, but now it’s time to forgive these same issues. is getting harder.
Requiem takes place right after the first game and is set in 14th-century France during the bubonic plague, the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War. Both games are set in a realistic depiction of France, but the stories often play with elements of the Gothic supernatural. This is one of the best things about Innocence and Requiem, and sets them apart from most third-person adventure games. The world is so wonderfully detailed, everything has an eerie sheen to it.
As in the original, you play as Amicia, a young girl tasked with escorting her brother Hugo through a plague-infested world infested with rats and occupied by hostile soldiers. In addition to Amicia’s trusty sling, Requiem introduces a crossbow. As you can imagine, the crossbow is much more powerful than Amicia’s sling, but the bolts for it are harder to come by. means You can throw objects to draw the enemy’s attention, push them into tight spaces to hide them from view, or follow your enemies’ movements with a vision mode called Ratsense. Yes, rat sense.
The first few enemy encounters in the previews I played weren’t great. After Amicia is kicked out of a nice little pilgrim encampment, she stumbles across some ruins and soldiers quickly approach her. It is easy for Amicia to get trapped. When Amicia is caught by her soldiers, he knocks her to the ground and Hugo helps her. From here, Amicia can stun her soldiers with a counter, kill them with a disposable knife, or escape. If Amicia doesn’t react, the guards will kill her.
It’s nice to have more combat options than the previous game, but the first few areas don’t really support them. Even countering or killing a guard usually didn’t leave enough room to get past the rest of the soldiers. I quickly realized that if I was caught, it was best to restart the encounter.
I don’t mind stealth games. In fact, I love Metal Gear Solid and am an avid fan of Splinter Cell. It’s a way of poking and poking through the simulation, allowing you to outrun enemies in creative ways. This distraction-based approach to stealth didn’t work in the first game.
Thankfully, as I progressed, the options opened up a bit more. rice field. Using Hugo’s Ratsense and careful timing, he was able to slip past most opponents.I say many Because we reached the ridge and hid behind the bushes and waited for the guards to pass. But the guard found me right by the bushes and rushed off. I tried to jump off the ridge, but was stopped by an invisible wall. The guards cornered and killed Amicia. That inconsistency with the AI, combined with the arbitrary limits of the invisible wall, robbed the confrontation of any tension and ended in a cheap death.
New to A Plague Tale: Requiem is the ability to take direct control of a rat’s mischief, turning any enemy who dares escape the open flame into a treat. Adds a nice wrinkle to combat, being able to quickly dispatch enemies if there are hordes of rats nearby. These segments felt more dynamic. In particular, it happened in an open-air bath spilled over a rice field. There was plenty of room to maneuver, and systematically picking off enemies with rats and clearing the way for Amicia and Hugo added a much-needed layer of strategy to the battle.
The second half of the preview followed Amicia, Hugo, and a surly soldier named Arno looking for a boat. The first part of the chapter consisted mostly of puzzles, as the trio navigate a rat-infested cave system. The puzzles weren’t complicated, but they offered a welcome change of pace from combat. I’m curious to see how these puzzles evolve as Amicia’s arsenal expands.
Combat issues aside, what I’m really looking forward to in Requiem is the story. This preview consisted of two chapters of him that took place almost halfway through the game, making it tough to keep up with the plot. That said, the acting seems to have been as strong as the first game. Hugo’s voice acting in particular stood out. Despite all the horrors he had seen, there was still an innocent charm to him that offered respite from the harsh world.
We ran into quite a few bugs during preview, but bugs are to be expected when it comes to pre-release builds. Games are imperfect and developers usually use the final stages of development to iron out any remaining glitches. However, just over a month after A Plague Tale: Requiem was released, I ran into a number of progress-stopping bugs that required me to reload the encounter and restart the entire section.
In one instance, Arno asked me to light a shield to get through a rat-infested area. Unfortunately, Arno refused to wield the shield, so I couldn’t set it on fire. I checked the keybindings and swapped from mouse and keyboard to controller, but to no avail. Reloading the save didn’t fix the problem, so I finally restarted the section.
Asobo Studio has time to fix these issues, but as the game’s release date approaches, it’s worth keeping an eye on the bug situation. I hope so, but in my experience it usually isn’t.
Overall, I’m cautiously optimistic about Requiem. I can’t wait to see where Asobo takes the story and its memorable cast of characters, even if the combat doesn’t go so well.
A Plague Tale: Requiem comes to PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S and X on October 13th.
GameSpot may receive a commission from retail offers.
The products featured here have been independently selected by the editors. GameSpot may receive a portion of the proceeds from purchases featured on our site.