Plague Tale: Innocence was, at least for me, a breath of fresh air in the genre of action-adventure games with elements of stealth. The new IP, interesting history, environment and mechanics related to rats captivated me so much that I am waiting for the sequel like PPE for clickbytes!
The first part had some disabilities, which was certainly related to the limited budget. At gamescom, I had the opportunity to play a sequel to the story from Asobo studio, and if you compare one to two, it’s more or less like jumping from The Last of Us 1 to a sequel – more scale, more freedom, more mechanics and more emphasis on building relationships between characters. This is already a title that we can fully call triple-A. What’s more – the production is very similar to Sony games like The Last of Us or Uncharted.
Amicia and her brother Hugo did not find peace after the end of the first part. Six months after the events of Innocence, the boy still suffers from a mysterious disease attracting the “dark side of the force”, so the couple travels to an island in south-eastern France to find a cure for him, fighting French soldiers again. And not only with them, because you will often have to watch out for rats and make your way. However, it is still a dark and brutal story, in which there is no shortage of diseases and plagues such as rats that eat people alive, about which I will tell more in a moment. We will dabble in blood and guts more than once, we will see human corpses hanging and decaying, sometimes these are very, really very blunt views.
A Plague Tale: Requiem looks really great and you can see it in the first locations. Even the first one was able to impress with the setting, and the sequel, along with the injection of cash, is at times phenomenal when exploring picturesque French streets, when the surrounding tenement houses are bathed in rain, and at times when it is dark and the light becomes our ally. Amicia now looks like Lara in the latest installments of Tomb Raider, especially when we see different grimaces of her face while fighting or moving various objects, and the picturesque landscapes look phenomenal at times. We can still use various potions that allow you to play with fire and use flames to fight enemies (turn off the lights and watch the enemy being devoured by a wave of rats) or solve puzzles, and new possibilities have been added, such as using tar, which allows you to increase the firepower . This deters rats even more, allowing us to pass inaccessible areas, but we can also use tar on torches, thanks to which the flame will be even greater for a moment, for a certain period of time. This offers completely new possibilities in the case of clashes with rats.
Changes can also be seen in the construction of levels – tunnel, often very limited locations from the first one, where it was possible to bypass the enemies in one way, predicted by the authors, has grown significantly. I had the opportunity to play, for example, the sixth chapter, where Amicia and Hugo break through the quarries trying to sail to the aforementioned island. There are times when we have quite a lot of territory, we can bypass enemies and plan the route to the destination in several ways. Now we have much more options for sneaking, hiding in the grass, combining and it’s up to us whether we choose the path of an assassin or a frontal attack, which is also related to the development of the character, because depending on what style we prefer, our character will develop in one of three directions. The more we play in a given style, the faster we learn new skills.
However, I had a problem here, because while it’s still a great stealth game, when the enemies noticed me I felt defenseless, they didn’t have the right ammunition. Amicia can still stun the enemy with a counterattack, but running around guards and stunning them completely knocks out the immersion. Maybe the problem was that practically the entire sixth chapter is traversed with Hugo in his hand, which makes the fight much more difficult, but the battle sequences were very ritual. Another thing is that now it is much easier to lose the guards, and they lose interest in us faster, even if we kill another soldier in front of them.
And if we are already at the “weapons”. This time the number of stones in the slingshot is unlimited, but Amicia also has a crossbow that pierces through the armor of enemies. One shot and the opponent usually falls. Although it takes a while to load it, and bolts are a scarce commodity, you can wreak havoc with such weapons. The more that the girl can also collect blades and like in The Last of Us and attack enemies with them, slitting their throats or cutting tendons in their legs. In general, inspirations from the post-apocalyptic Naughty Dog series are even more visible this time. We also have similar crafting options, thanks to which we will not only create the aforementioned potions, but also permanently improve the crossbow to be able to load it faster, we will increase the range of the slingshot or the amount of space for bolts.
It only takes a moment to understand that Hugo’s relationship with Amicia takes on an even stronger message. This is not the innocent girl from the number one anymore, at times it is a functional and conscious killing machine that left remorse behind. Hugo is also not beaten up – thanks to the addition of a scanner, he can listen and target enemies through walls (we can see their orange contours) while planning his next moves. Well, if nothing else, it resembles The Last of Us. He can also control rats – then the view changes to FPP and Hugo, like a father of a herd, travels the level together with thousands of rodents, climbing structures and attacking enemies that are devoured. Which looks extremely brutal at times, because the opponents are dying in pain. However, it should be remembered that rats in this form are still afraid of light. Of course, rats are still a double-edged weapon, and at certain points in the game you will see a whole lot of them on the screen. They will pour out of the ground, walls, windows, people suffering from musophobia will not have it easy.
Plague Tale: Innocence is a beautiful, addictive story for the single player. And although this is really an elaborate formula of the first part of the game, the amenities can be seen in every aspect, even in the inventory and weapons menu, which are much better managed. A must-see for fans of one. Didn’t you play one? You have time to catch up to the premiere, and an additional incentive is the fact that the sequel will go to Game Pass. It will be strong 8/10 🙂