Rats. why did it have to be Rats?
After hearing how great A Plague Tale: Innocence was, and my fascination with Focus Home Interactive, I finally got the chance to sit down and push through this title over the Christmas break. While the title may initially seem a bit thin on gameplay, its stunning narrative and linear stealth systems all combine into creating a very enjoyable experience that is only held back by its abundant reliance on trial and error.
Taking place in France during the Hundred Years’ War in 1348, you take on the role of a young woman named Amicia de Rune, the daughter to Lord Robert and Lady Béatrice. She also has a brother, Hugo, but she doesn’t really have much of a relationship with him as he has a mysterious illness and has been shuttered from the outside world by his mother. The game does an excellent job of setting up the world Amicia enhabits and then very quickly escalates it into running away from the Inquisition as they rampage into town, killing everyone they can in order to kidnap Hugo, for reasons not initially explained. This forces a reunion of sorts between Amicia and Hugo and causes them to get to know one another as they attempt to escape with their lives. The story lends itself towards detailing this estranged relationship between the two while also digging into what their mother hid from them and why Hugo is so important.
A Plague Tale doesn’t directly have a combat system and while much of the game has you stealthing your way through linear pathing and directly controlled set pieces, you do have a variety of tools available to you that result in some brutal ways to decimate your enemies, not to mention over a billion rats that are desperately trying to consume you. As you hide in the tall grass, you’ll remain hidden from guards as they patrol around you, throwing out pots or rocks to lure them away as you attempt to sneak by them. There are times where sneaking isn’t an option and you’ll need to resort to using more brutal methods such as using your sling to drive a chunk of rock through their face or firing off a shot that can douse a nearby flame, therefore letting the rats leap towards them and use their numbers to not only overwhelm them but flat out just murder them.
For those concerned about it being a very linear experience, I’m not sure this game could have worked any other way. Scenarios are often set up in a way where you’ll barely make a run to the next patch of grass, or a patrol that borders on an impossible run without using your sling to drop them, hoping a nearby guard doesn’t see the body. These moments are built in a way where tension is key and frankly, making each event a linear experience means everyone gets that same rush at that moment. Franky, I love linear experiences providing the story and moment to moment gameplay is solid and A Plague Tale has this in spades.
Amicia will have access to a sling that can be upgraded to make it more effective and gain several new ammunition types that vary on their purpose. You can use rocks to pelt guards with a solid shot to the face, an alchemic mixture to ignite or douse flames, as well as an acidic mixture that can burn through protective helmets, forcing the guard to remove it, exposing their face. There is also a flash you can use to disperse rats away, and a mixture to lure rats to a certain spot, as well as a sleeping mixture to knock out some guards when their back is turned. Now, I’ve said mixture a lot and that is because alchemy plays a huge role in the game and is worked into the plot at nearly every turn. Amicia is granted a basic understanding of the practice and this allows several items that you find around you to be craftable into many of the ammunition types needed to push through certain areas of the journey. The crafting system encourages you to go off the beaten path to track down these items, as while the game is largely linear in its level design, there are still a few pockets of hidden areas littered throughout each environment. Without diving into spoilers, there is one last type of attack you gain in the final level that is interesting but can be a bit annoying to control effectively.
Now, while dying to a guard is one thing, not to mention disposing of them with your sling, it’s another matter entirely when you’re up against the rats, a central selling point in how this game handles horror. As while this game takes place during the Hundred Years War, the Black Plague was also in full swing and is the central talking point surrounding the game’s core narrative. This results in billions of rats just flooding the entire countryside. Their swarming presence is everywhere and you’ll need to navigate lit areas as the rodent menace will ignore or scatter away from areas that are illuminated. While you can use your skills in alchemy to push through several patches of them, there are countless puzzles where you’ll need to navigate hordes of them, using torches, lamps, or rotating lights to create paths between them. There is even a moment where you’ll need to navigate a thin path during a lightning storm, using the flashes of light to sprint through the scattered hordes.
With varying systems of stealth and combat, the real drive to what A Plague Tale offers is through its story. Now, I’ve lightly detailed about it already, but the narrative here is brilliantly handled and is easily my favorite element of the game. The visuals that are alongside for the ride are equally impressive with some fantastic core design and the use of light is also something that is benefitted here not just as a nice visual touch, but as a gameplay mechanic as well. Focus Home Interactive is not a powerhouse publisher when it comes to offering visually impressive games, but A Plague Tale might be their best looking game to date. Characters are realistically detailed and the environments are just stunning to look at. The rat’s themselves are bunched together in hordes that both shock and amaze and some of the more later moments with them allow their presence to be simply horrifying.
The voice acting is also impressive as both Amicia and Hugo are performed by first-time voice actors in Charlotte McBurney, and Logan Hannan, respectively. Their performances as the two siblings are very good and help this game feel unique, with the pair helping with the writing process to enrich the characters with a bit more depth. The only issue I have with the voice acting is that many moments of dialogue can be cut off by pushing too far in the environment, kickstarting the next moment of dialogue and putting a halt to what the character was previously saying.
While I’ve been very high on praise for the game, there is far too much trial and error here with Amicia being able to be killed the moment a guard is on top of her. She doesn’t have any sort of counter and even being escorted by other characters, they will just sit there while she is killed. There are countless areas in the game where the objective isn’t terribly clear, or that it’s hard to see certain things that you need to interact with. I don’t mind the game being challenging, but there are some times when my rock will zip past a guard’s face for no reason, and then have them kill me, only to relive the previously scripted scene over and over again due to a poorly placed checkpoint. These problems can often result in the following scene lacking its emotional impact due to having to had completed that section several times due to a cheap death, or a missed shot.
A Plague Tale: Innocence is dark, brutal, and yet is an incredibly touching story about two siblings reconnecting during some truly horrifying times. The puzzles can often be fun, the environments grotesque and reeking of death, and its cast of characters are enjoyable to the end. The game’s central gimmick, the rats, can truly be a force of nature and can often be unsettling to see, especially when combined with the atrocities the inquisition has committed themselves. In a sea of constant sequels and live service games, it’s still awesome to see a story-driven single-player game come out and offer up such a compelling experience like this one.
A Plague Tale: Innocence was purchased by the reviewer and played on a PlayStation 4 Pro.
All screenshots were taken on a PlayStation 4 Pro.