A Plague Tale: Requiem review: hypnotising and harrowing survival horror
A Plague Tale: Requiem is very much a game for the autumn. There’s the memory of summer evenings, and it’s still sort of here, low sunlight at about seven o’clock. Yet, you’re slowly, unstoppably proceeding on and on into darker days.
Scary. Look, if you think my introduction’s overegged the pudding, the game is titled, “A Sickness Story: Memorial Service.” If we’re going to have anything with this game, it’s not a rosy time of it. The continuation of Hugo and Amicia’s story, and the lurches from the hopefulness of childhood to the tangible impact of trauma on these young characters, will leave you breathless from the start to the end. It’s terrible - and unmissable for fans of narrative heavy games and survival horror.
Check out the trailer for A Plague Tale: Requiem below:
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Since the events of Innocence, Hugo de Rune’s affliction with the Macula has been controlled and the family of four travel the ever-picturesque south of France in comparative calm. However, an unfortunate incident at an isolated farm causes his sister Amicia to kill to survive and the stress on Hugo reawakens the dormant disease. Once again, the two seek some sort of resolution while devastation follows in their footsteps, but this time, Hugo’s dream of a beautiful island motivates them to find a cure outside of the secular realms of alchemy.
Previously, the game was set in linear slices of Guyenne, however Reqiuem’s shift to Provence is a sight for sore eyes. The use of Quixel megascans has given the game an aspect of realism that is employed to an entrancing and a sickening effect. Forts are inspiring bastions, the fields are vibrant with flowers, and rat nests that are thick with tendrils and built from the bones of victims rise out of shadow like alien architecture.
Then, combine this with the Dualsense that has the tiniest of shivers to simulate sandy ground slipping under Amicia’s boots, a tap on the right side whenever Hugo takes her hand, and the oscillation of the rock in the sling causing the adaptive triggers to wobble. Truly, the controller made this experience so much more immersive. With the HyperX Cloud Alpha wireless headset enclosing my ears, hearing the skittering and squeaking of the creatures and Amicia’s shaky breathing, I almost always had a stomach ache after every section where we had to escape the rats thanks to the pure stress of it all.
Amicia has a range of options when she enters a potential combat encounter, and players will remember these from Innocence, like the “ignifier” stone to ignite braziers, the “exstinguis” to put them out, and the “odoris” to attract rats to spots. There is now the tar projectile which causes fire to burn very brightly, temporarily blinding enemies or creating a larger area of light to dash through to safety. And, Amicia acquires a crossbow which can be loaded with a variety of bolts that create sources of light on wooden surfaces or instantly kill enemies without body armour.
Her companions also have abilities that are helpful to distract, stun or eliminate enemies in a level, and Hugo squeezes into small gaps and unlock doors from the other side for Amicia. Hugo, over the course of the story, earns the power to use the rats to hear the heartbeats of enemies and can now even pilot into the horde of rats and devour enemies - though this puts his little body under a lot of stress.
With all of these abilities in your arsenal to fight against soldiers and mercenaries who want to kill Amicia and wreak revenge or worship upon Hugo for his connection to the Macula, Requiem shares similarities to the “good for her” genre of horror. Either slinging rocks to their skulls or taking away their only light source so the rats swallow them up, each soldier is one that would have captured the two children without a second thought. It’s what they deserve, justifies Amicia at one point, for sacrificing the lower-class townspeople as an all-you-can-eat buffet for the rats.
It’s not what either Amicia or Hugo deserve. Requiem, in its relentless viscera, the gravity of the performances from Amicia and Hugo’s voice actors Léopoldine Serre and Cécile Gatto, and the levity of bright moments where the two are able to play and mess about as children should, makes their journey so much more harrowing.
It’s not like The Last Of Us Part II where it’s an adult choosing to commit acts of violence on other adults. The historical setting too is a factor. In a post-apocalyptic pandemic where the infected eventually turn into mushrooms, there’s that slight divorce between yourself and the situation. This probably won’t ever happen to you.
Here, it’s very possible that orphaned children from the Black Death saw terrible things and were forced to do terrible things to survive. Of course, the seas of rats that schloop up bodies like the Noo Noo with Tubby Custard is the fantastical element, but you try to suspend your disbelief when the rats rupture from the walls, flowing like a bloodthirsty tide towards the two children. On the PlayStation 5, there can be as many as 300,000 rats on the screen in these pulse-pounding sections. Asobo switches the camera round at points, forcing you to see these rats gain ground on our heroine, and you just hope that you didn’t choose the wrong way to turn down those rickety streets.
It is an achievement that the game makes me actively not want to use any of its combat mechanics, preferring much more to scarper from cover to cover, because they are children. The injuries they sustain are left on their character models over the course of the game. Hugo’s small scarred face is watching Amicia. If I can do anything to prevent them from experiencing any more trauma, I’ll try to take that option, even if it makes the game more difficult for me. Asobo has been very clear about its stance on spoilers and I’ll of course respect that. The final few chapters of the game were some of the most beautiful — visually and thematically — sections that I’ve seen in a horror game.
Unfortunately, there were a few issues. I personally find it funny that the game about the inheritance of a terrible, traumatic disease of the blood has the same problems as its predecessor. If you don’t do a section exactly the way the game expects you to, you might have to restart to reclaim the materials and the ground you lost. Or, in another ire-inducing incident, be one-shotted over and over by a much more powerful enemy because you don’t know which way the game wants you to go. Asobo helped me out super speedily with this part for which I thank them hugely. A game with a story this gripping doesn’t deserve stop blocks.
All this in mind, I know that Innocence and Requiem will stay with me for a long time. It’s an amazing example of how a game can balance both the light and the dark; the majesty and the horror of the world in this time period. The path that lies ahead for these two children who suffer with the weight of the world on their shoulders should sound like a done deal, but you’re chewing your nails to stubs while worrying over the fate of their few friends and praying that there is a life for them yet. In this game, Hugo and Amicia have become unforgettable characters in the medium, and I hope that everyone has the chance to come on this journey with them.
Pros: an utter masterclass in audio design, photorealism used to an enchanting and haunting degree, a gripping story
Cons: rigidity even though there’s a range of tools to solve puzzles with
For fans of: The Last Of Us series, Resident Evil series, gritty historical TV shows like The Last Kingdom
9/10: Exceptional
A Plague Tale: Requiem releases for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and Nintendo Switch on 18 October. Code for review (PlayStation 5) was supplied by PR. Find a complete guide to GAMINGbible's review scores here.
Topics: PlayStation 5