A Plague Tale: Innocence
Face the devastation of 14th century France.
On a lovely afternoon in autumn, Amicia De Rune is out on a hunt with her father and the family dog, a scene so warm and tranquil you just know things are going to go very wrong very soon. That doesn’t make it any less shocking when Amicia suddenly comes face to face with the Plague, which manifests itself not only as a horrible disease, but as a teeming mass of rats that devours everything in its wake.
Amicia and her father make their way home, only to find the Inquisition at their doorstep. For reasons unknown they want Amicia’s little brother Hugo and are not above slaughtering their way through to him. Due to an illness, the small Hugo’s lived a completely sheltered life and is basically a stranger to his sister, but in the face of death it’s her task to protect him at all costs.
It’s an effective introduction to your tools and responsibilities. As Amicia you keep Hugo close during sneaking passages, not letting go of his hand unless absolutely necessary and shielding him from the most gruesome sights. If there’s climbing to be done, Hugo goes up and over first, and he helps open new passages by squeezing through openings his sister won’t fit. Amicia’s sling is a multipurpose item that can be used to distract soldiers by throwing stones at nearby metal items or destroy simple fastenings of drawbridges and the like.
Soon the children make it to a small town. It’s here that not only the Plague’s full extent becomes obvious, but also how woefully under-prepared Amicia is to take care of a child she hardly knows and who’s fussing about wanting to return home. Hugo’s disobedience is an absolutely realistic source of frustration
throughout the game, and a lot of Amicia’s character growth comes from how she handles it.
Unfortunately your actions in A Plague Tale for the most part don’t support the oppressive atmosphere the narrative builds, mostly because it’s a game that isn’t challenging to begin with, and only becomes easier. The first time you have to resort to violence, face a giant swarm of rats or even just see a pile of dead bodies all feel momentous, until all of these things turn into business as usual.
THE RATS
While your options grow, the number of enemy types doesn’t, and towards the middle of the game you’ve seen and fought the same handful of soldiers slowly walking their predetermined routes so often that things feel repetitive rather than threatening. Rats too turn from a horrifying force to a mere annoyance as you gain more and more ways to work around them using light or tasty soldier corpses.
The amount of violence on display also poses a tonal problem – it’s difficult to believe Amicia is truly haunted by what she’s doing when’s she’s also dropping chandeliers on people’s heads. The siblings and the friends they make along the way provide an interesting perspective, and their evolving relationship with each other is A Plague Tale’s great draw, but the plot taking a bizarre turn towards the end makes for a botched landing at the last minute.