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Whenever I boot up a game and see a Focus Entertainment (previously Focus Interactive) logo, I have some very specific expectations in mind. They are the “No you cant have , we have it at home” of publishers. Looking for Dark Souls? Why not give The Surge a go. You wanted to play some Hades? Well you don’t need to when you have Curse of the Dead Gods. Dragon Age? You must have meant to ask for Greedfall. I don’t say this with any malice because I find almost all of the games they pick up endearing or at the very least interesting takes on an existing popular game. They might not always work right and often show a dull sheen in areas many top releases would be polished to a blinding shine but they have heart. With that in mind, let’s not talk about The Last of Us… because we have A Plague Tale: Innocence at home.
Innocence Lost
You play as Amicia De Rune, oldest child of a French noble family in the 14th century who appear to have accomplished the amazing feat of having their peasantry like and respect them. Your sickly brother Hugo has attracted the attention of the Inquisition and so you set off on a quest across France. Initially just trying to escape their grasp but eventually to start piecing together what turn of fates shattered your once quiet life. You will spend most of the game either stealthing your way through a variety of medieval locales or doing some light puzzle solving to help you progress. So on the surface of it, the game is an 11 hour long stealth escort quest and that sounds an experience that could be used as an alternative form of torture. Having to always look out for a non player character, let alone a child, is often a frustrating task before we add in the additional complications of having to get them to consistently hide from enemies. Come back though! This isn’t actually a problem the game suffers from, the NPC characters seem to always be able to stealthily follow you and during any sections where space is at a premium Hugo will cling to Amicia allowing the two to act as one. Hugo is still annoying to begin with of course, but it’s a personality trait rather than a mechanical one.
A Rat’s Tale
The Inquisition isn’t the only problem you are going to have to contend with. The Black Death has arrived in Europe and hordes upon hordes of black furred plague vermin are just waiting to tear you apart the second you step a little too close. With it being in the game's title a lot of effort has gone into making the plague rats as uncomfortable and intimidating for the player as possible. Whenever the rats aren’t on screen you are left with a lingering tension and knowledge that they could show up out of the ground or nearby crevices at a moment's notice.
The fact they stick in my mind is a testament to what this game does well, setting an atmosphere. The environments all feel richly detailed and appropriate for the time period while the soundtrack is full of deep imposing strings to set a constant oppressive mood. The signs of death and disease are everywhere and there are very few moments of respite in the story for our duo to collect themselves from the horror of the world around them. It really draws you in and makes you feel like every level is a battle to keep some small amount of hope alive amongst the bleak setting.
This stands in stark contrast to the relatively young and innocent characters thrust into it. Plague Tale attempts to deal with this theme with reasonable success, showing a lot of moral conflict about some of the actions Hugo and Amicia are taking to survive in this new hell. In a number of cases I felt truly bad for the “enemies” as the fate of being left to the rats feels far more daunting than any human interactions. Plague Tale relishes in this as it makes you metaphorically twist the knife and indirectly consign other people to a horrific fate. One of the strongest sections of the game is where Amicia then has to come to terms with her actions over their journey. It’s not perfect character development, and I wish they hadn’t made enemies drop items because as soon as my sling had got some upgrades I was dolling out more blunt force trauma than a martial arts classic which muted her guilt somewhat, but it’s a good attempt. Too often we see characters just naturally adapt to being stone cold killers without a second and the game takes a number of moments to show the effect this is having Amicia’s relatively young mind.
Plague Tale was nominated for a slew of accolades around its release and won the 2019 Steam award for Outstanding Story-Rich Game. The overarching narrative will not join the hall of fame amongst my favourite narrative based games but it does serve as a good vehicle for us to see our main duo grow and form an endearing new relationship. Alongside Amicia and Hugo come a small cast of supporting characters who are all well written and likeable, with excellent voice acting and some rather emotional moments. The main villain doesn’t quite get the same treatment and ends up being almost comic book levels of “bad guy”. In fact the entire last section of the game ends up with a slightly over exaggerated comic book feeling that I can see turning some people off but I was charmed enough by that point I found it rather enjoyable. Good story, great characters, excellent world. Even Hugo shows enough growth that he ends up being likeable in the end.
Surviving the Black Death
While the whole review could be spent talking about the look and feel of the game, we should mention how it plays. The common criticism levied against the game is that the actual gameplay itself is rather bland and holds your hand a bit too much and it’s honestly a fair point. It’s usually rather obvious what action you need to take and rarely are you presented with too much challenge. The stealth sections will see you constantly crouching around behind cover and throwing stones at obviously highlighted targets to distract guards. When the soldiers are not around you will have rats to contend with and most sections involve lighting up fires to scare them away or finding a distraction for their hunger. It’s not bad, just rather repetitive and forgetful. Additional ammunition types are added to allow you to approach situations with some freedom but you are very constrained in how you can use them so I never felt like I had done anything different than what the game expected.
Every now and then a boss battle is thrown in which feels rather clunky. Amicia’s movements are not really designed for mobile combat and you will be constantly fighting with the camera to both watch where you are going and keep an eye on the opponent. It’s the area the game feels weakest although personally I am a bit less concerned about the overall difficulty and slightly awkward fights when they are sparse because the focus of the game is clearly on the story and ambience. To that end Plague Tale does encourage the player to explore its world by hiding collectibles and resources used for upgrades throughout. Sadly these hiding spots feel like nooks and crannies in a rather long corridor rather than really allowing for much player exploration.
What I am less forgiving of are the bugs, multiple times I managed to softlock myself and have to reload the chapter to progress. The rats also have a tendency to always be able to get about a half a metre closer to you than you expect which can result in some frustrating deaths. These issues aren’t deal breakers and checkpoints are frequent enough that you don’t lose much time if you do die but I hope those rough corners are smoothed out in the sequel because the minor annoyances can really take you out of the experience.
The Tale’s End
Going into this game I expected to come out the other side and say “It’s good, but not great” but I would like to amend that.
“It’s great, not just good”.
Plague Tale will reward you with a sombre journey through its darkly infected world and some truly memorable moments. While the gameplay might not steal your heart, the characters, music and atmosphere just might. I would love to see more AA games bringing settings like this to life and creating interesting stories within them. The true seal of approval however is the knowledge that after finishing this review, I will be moving on to start the sequel.
