Welcome to my review of A Plague Tale: Requiem. The sequel to A Plague Tale: Innocence is finally out. This is an Action-Adventure Survival Horror that is brought to us by developers Asobo Studio (Quantum Break, Fuel) and publishers Focused Entertainment (Aliens Fireteam Elite, SnowRunner).
A Plague Tale: Requiem is available to play now on PC and Xbox Series X|S via Game Pass Ultimate. It is also available to buy on the aforementioned platforms as well as the PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch (Cloud Version).
For the purpose of my review, I played the game on the Xbox Series X via Game Pass Ultimate.
We’re Not In Guyenne Anymore!
So will A Plague Tale: Requiem live up to the hype? I think it does. You can continue reading to find out why I think this. You can also check out our previous reviews once you’re done here.
The Game
I am going to warn you now if you’ve not played A Plague Tale: Innocence then this review may contain some spoilers for that game.
So now that warning is out of the way, I will continue. As you know from the first game, Amicia, her little brother Hugo, and Lucas all end up facing some crazy times together. Fending off or escaping from soldiers, knights, rats, and more. Not far into A Plague Tale: Requiem we see Amicia, Hugo (Mummy, Mummy!), and Beatrice de Rune are back for another crazy time. The Trainée Alchemist, Lucas, is also back for more fun with the rats.
The game starts off rather peaceful, Amicia and Hugo seem happy and trouble-free for the first in a long time. One thing you immediately notice is that the game looks absolutely bloody gorgeous. More about that further down. The story is, as expected, phenomenal. I won’t go into too much detail but be warned, the Bite, the rats, the Macula… It’s all here. A Plague Tale: Requiem also seems more brutal than the first, but that could just be me. That’s not a bad thing though.
As mentioned the game initially starts off very peaceful and slow, but this soon changes. Before we know it, the rats are back with a vengeance. My god, some of the destruction of the scenery in this game looks absolutely top-tier. When it starts to go bad everything becomes dark, dingy, bloody, and surrounded by fire.
Gameplay-wise, we are taking control of Amicia again. She has her trusty slingshot at the ready, but we can also get new weapons further into the game. Amicia can use her sling with a variety of different alchemical tools with the assistance of Lucas teaching her them. There are quite a few different alchemical tools to use including Ignifier (fire), Extinguis (puts out fires), and Odoris (which attracts rats to a target). This isn’t all of them, but all of the alchemical tools can also be used with other weapons and items such as pots.
For example, if you chuck a pot of tar on the ground and then use the Ignifier with the sling, this creates a fairly big fire that the rats will hate. Useful against some of the bigger enemies too.
One feature I do like about A Plague Tale: Requiem is the leveling system. You earn experience points against three different categories of skill depending on how you choose to progress through the game. If you have the chance to sneak past some guards without alerting them or taking them head-on, you’ll earn experience points for your Prudence skill. Prudence allows you to move around the world quieter, otherwise, be more stealthy.
If you go slingshot blazing into the guards you will earn experience towards your Aggressive skill. This means you’ll do more damage or have more ways of taking down guards.
The final is the Opportunism skill. This gains experience points when you use your alchemical tools.
Essentially if you play the game and change up your play style, you’ll earn experience points toward the three skills mentioned above. Working on them all means you will be quite a force that your opponents will have to deal with.
Sounds wrong but I love the character animations in this game, especially when you sneak up behind a guard and either knock him out or use a knife. You get the idea.
Look & Sound
The game runs at 4K 30FPS on the Xbox Series X with no apparent way to change this. However, the game looks pretty bloody gorgeous for the most part. There are a few little issues at times which I personally think could be done better with the power of the Xbox Series X.
Below is a screenshot I took in photo mode. Unlike some other games, the photo mode in Requiem does not re-render the scene you’re looking at to make it look even better. The photos are literally what you see during the gameplay. As a friend of mine said when I posted it to Twitter, he had to take a second look as he initially thought it was a photo taken in real life.
The audio in A Plague Tale: Requiem is a pleasure (at times… The rats are terrifying!) to one’s ears. All of the sound effects in the game are incredible. The musical score is composed by Olivier Deriviere (Vampyr, GreedFall), and my god he has done a fantastic job of it. The music in the game suits every scene so bloody well.
Basically, if you enjoyed the score in the first Plague Tale game, then you’ll love the work put into A Plague Tale: Requiem.
Length & Replayability
I am yet to finish A Plague Tale: Requiem, however, the How Long To Beat website tells us that the game will last around 23.5 hours for completionists. At the time of writing, I have played for over 12 hours and I am only on chapter 9 of 17. I have been a bit stuck in places as well as exploring around when I can.
The game has 35 achievements/trophies (36 including the Platinum) for players to unlock during their journey in this game. It’s also not possible to unlock all of these in a single playthrough but sounds like a simple cleanup on New Game+ mode.
Conclusions
I’ve seen quite a few people complaining that A Plague Tale: Requiem is slow and boring. This is not the case, it does start off a little slow but it’s building on the story. It leads you into a false hope that everything is going to be alright for Amicia and Hugo. As I’ve mentioned above, we know shit is going to go down badly.
Personally, I think this is an absolutely fantastic game. It does have its flaws like a few niggly little bugs here and there but nothing game-breaking at all. However, both in the graphics and audio departments the game really hits those high notes. As mentioned it appears to be locked to 30FPS on the Xbox Series X, but do not let that deter you from playing this potential game of the year 2022.
I give A Plague Tale: Requiem a score of 9/10.
