▷A Plague Tale review: Innocence, the video game plague 🥇

If someone were to ask me why I love video games so much, I would reply, as always, "Because I love great stories". Since the announcement of him, A Plague Tale: Innocence it immediately seemed to us one of THOSE video games capable of giving us a similar story. We were right.

The game was created by the French software house Asobo Studio, known mainly for the creation of some licensed titles (Disney, Pixar) and for a few games developed independently (Fuel, The Crew) which have not, however, managed to establish themselves on the gaming scene. Today Asobo Studio presents us a new IP with an amazing dynamic adventure.

A Plague Tale: Innocence

The scenario in which the game is set is medieval France during the Hundred Years War, the conflict that saw France and England as protagonists in a war that lasted from 1337 to 1453. The protagonists of this story are the two brothers Amicia e Hugo, sons of the noble family by Rune who live in a mansion outside the city walls. Their serene everyday life is turned upside down during a hunting trip when Amicia, in the company of her father, attends, in the heart of the forest, adisturbing event. The young fifteen-year-old then returns to the house to alert her mother Béatrice and her little brother Hugo, suffering from a unknown disease. Due to his illness, the little one rarely left the side of his mother, a brilliant alchemist constantly busy looking for a cure for her son.

Right from the start it is clear that because of this, Amicia grew emotionally distant from the mother figure, bonding strongly to her father and feeling a not so veiled jealousy towards her brother. The situation at the De Rune house quickly worsened due to the arrival of theinquisition, strongly interested in little Hugo. After an adrenaline-pumping sequence, Amicia and Hugo are forced to flee their own home and soon find themselves alone and looking for help. However, the community is afflicted by famine, war and plague and it will not be easy for the two young people to face the outside world.

Dark age

Although, as gamers, we like to imagine the Middle Ages as an era full of heroes, adventures and a few dragons here and there, we know that reality is quite different. A Plague Tale: Innocence takes this harsh reality and throws it in our faces. The game opens with the pleasant sequence of Amicia in the woods with her father, immersed in a spectacular landscape, but the atmosphere will change quickly. Dark environments and suffering villages will take over giving us a faithful portrait, however fictionalized, of what the Middle Ages must have been like.

Asobo Studio has managed to discreetly characterize each scenario in each chapter of the game. The rat infestation and the horrors of the plague shine through in every sequence especially in the second phase of the game. Amicia and Hugo will in fact have to juggle endless fields of corpses fallen in battle and waves of mice devouring men armed only with their courage and their cunning. The only weapon available to Amicia, in fact, is a simple slingshot that the young woman uses to hit enemies from a distance or to distract them. The feeling of being helpless and helpless to what is around you will be a constant during the game. This, combined with masterful settings, offer a rare degree of involvement and empathy.

Easy to survive the plague

A Plague Tale: Innocence gives us a fresh, compelling and interesting storyline but fails to do the same in terms of gameplay. The game indeed looks like a classic dynamic adventure in which characters move from point A to point B. Although the settings are rich and well detailed, the possibility of exploring them is very low; you will often feel like you are walking inside a tunnel even outdoors. Generally, the whole game is very driven, both at an exploratory and plot advancement level.

The characters repeat aloud what to do and will give suggestions to the player in case he is unable to solve particular situations. Which is quite unlikely being the game very simple. The proposed "puzzles" and the situations in which it is necessary to reflect are few and easy to understand. Shiny objects and tools that are located exactly where they are needed will constantly point out which actions to take. This makes the challenge level virtually non-existent.

The stealth game sequences are many and not very innovative especially in the early stages of the game. It's all about luring enemies from the other side, hiding in tall grass, or sneaking under tables. An interesting variant, however, is given by Amicia's slingshot ammunition who, thanks to the use of alchemy, will be able to light or extinguish fires, corrode the metal of the enemy's armor and so on. To move (a little) the game will also be the allies of the protagonists with their particular skills that will allow you to open doors and closed chests or knock down enemies with a blow from behind.

A separate discussion must be made for the situations in which you will be forced to face several times an ocean of plague-bearing rats that cannot be defeated. Through an ingenious system it will only be possible to remove them from us with the use of fire in a disturbing version of the classic “The Floor is Lava“.

"The great stories"

A Plague Tale: Innocence is all about the plot and with reason. Everything is designed to create a strong empathy towards the characters. To do this, both the protagonists and the secondary characters are beautifully characterized, each with its own distinct and defined personality. You will feel an exaggerated sympathy for Amicia and her allies and a strong hatred for the Villain on duty. To enhance the character of the characters there is also the dubbing, in English (with a delightful French accent), worthy of a Hollywood film.

The degree of involvement of the player is also given by the graphic sector that manages to fully grasp the atmospheres, settings and characters of the game. Each scenario appears extremely vivid and well cared for. The plays of light and shadow, fundamental in the settings of this game, are very successful, as well as the projections of light. A Plague Tale: Innocence uses a graphics engine owned by Asobo Studio that manages to give us wonderful views without any drop in frame rate, even in chaotic situations where rats are present in large quantities.

To close our review there is the soundtrack, the icing on the cake of this game. The soundtracks are in fact curated by Olivier Deriviere, the composer behind the music of Alone in the Dark, Remember Me and Vampyr. The original soundtrack features the exclusive use of stringed instruments. Violas, cellos and violins characterize practically every phase of the game adapting to the player's actions. The result is a dark and eerie yet beautiful soundtrack.

In conclusion

A Plague Tale: Innocence turned out to be a great game with an engaging and well written storyline which makes us soon forget a not very innovative gameplay. Asobo Studio has managed to create an interesting graphic adventure and we hope that this can only be the beginning of other adventurous ones "Tales”.