A Plague Tale: Requiem Review

After the success of A Plague Tale: Innocence in 2019, Asobo Studio and Focus Entertainment’s A Plague Tale: Requiem is here to cash in on the hype. Is the game a worthy successor, or is it just more of the same?

A Plague Tale: Requiem Review

A Plague Tale: Requiem starts off peacefully. You play as Amicia, beginning your tale in the countryside of France. Your brother Hugo, you, and an apprentice alchemist named Lucas are playing tag and exploring. You get a brief tutorial, and then you and Hugo explore the ruins of an old castle. It turns out it isn’t abandoned, and some crazy murderous beekeepers are killing all the nearby farmers. As you stealth your way out, you get caught, and Hugo does something to help you escape (it fades to black, so you aren’t sure what happened right away).

When you return to your senses, the group begins heading towards a large town. Again everything seems peaceful here, and there is even a festival going on. You are here to find someone who can figure out what is going on with Hugo. He seems to have some connection with the plague rats, but you don’t know what. Players set out to find the man in a lovely town, but as I’m sure you’d expect, the quiet doesn’t last. The rats turn up while you are away, and the game really wants you to feel like there is no peace to be found.

The game is about as pure of a stealth game as you get these days. You can kill, but it is rarely quiet and often will alert other guards in the area. There are perks to reduce sound, but they don’t come until later, and you need materials to upgrade. You also get a crossbow in this game to kill helmet enemies more easily. In most cases, though, there are too many soldiers to kill them all. I’m saying this because you can’t play this like Assassins Creed and get away with it. Silence is the name of the game.

A Plague Tale: Requiem features a signature gameplay loop players will come to know quickly. To begin, you are searching for someone to help Hugo. Then you find someone or something to help. The guards get in the way, because you’ve been killing them for a while now. Should you stealth past them, or fight them and enter the rat part of the game? This is usually a puzzle part or a stealth part with guards roaming as well. The game does an excellent job of making you feel slightly hopeful of the next stop or town, only to rob you of that hope utterly and completely. Ever wonder what a tidal wave of rats would look like? Well, after visiting a village in this game, you’ll quickly find out.

The rats are a constant threat and will devour you if they catch you. Light will keep them back, so torches, fires, and daylight will allow you to travel safely. The rat swarms are massive in this game and will cover vast areas of ground. You need to navigate through them with any kind of light you can find. Your sling can start fires at distances, tar pots can burn parts of the floor briefly, and can even use sticks to net the time needed to get through the area. Of course, you can also put a fire out and watch the rats consume a guard, if you so desire.

I didn’t beat the first game, but I am pretty sure you couldn’t control the rats in it. A few hours into the game, you get rat sight, which lets you see targets through walls and obstacles. Hugo connects to the rats allowing you to see through their eyes, and you can even control swarms eventually. This does not mean you can’t walk through the rats freely, just that you can use them against your enemies more easily. It certainly helps to clear out difficult sections, but as with all stealth games, there is a problem.

The problem is that if you get caught, you start over from the beginning of the area. Then, after you get caught, you get impatient and try to rush, getting caught again. It’s a vicious cycle that had me burned out on the game before the end. Don’t get me wrong; you get plenty of supplies and options to help prevent getting caught, but you go down in a couple of hits. Trying to rush the exit will result in guards stopping you with rocks, javelins, and arrows. Your patience will most certainly be tested.

Tech-wise I had some frame drops, but there were no crashes or major bugs.

A Plague Tale: Requiem takes what made the first game good and improves upon that. If you can handle the constant stealth sections, this game is for you.

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