The Plague was a devastating disease that wiped out millions in the Medieval era. It's uncommon to see a disease revolve around a game's story, but A Plague Tale does it wonderfully. Full of adventure, sadness, excitement, and little hope, Innocence does an amazing job making you care about its characters and world. You play as Amecia de' Rune who is a girl of royalty. She goes on a walk with her dog and father in the woods and, well I don't want to spoil a thing here, bad things happen and she must suddenly flee her home. The entire game revolves around trying to find a cure for the Plague and her brother who has a mysterious disease that may or may not be tied to the Plague itself. Amecia and her brother Hugo are fantastic characters and I was glued to my screen and played through the entire game in one day. I wanted to know what was next, and the great stealth combat is some of the best I've played in the last decade. The game is a mix between stealth combat and cut scenes with just some exploring. The game is highly linear, but the combat areas become more open later on in the game with multiple ways to get through enemies. The main focus of combat is fire and your slingshot. This sling can be used to whip rocks at enemies heads to kill them, but doing so around other guards will alert them. At the beginning of the game, you will just toss rocks at metal to distract guards and use pots to lure them away. You aren't killing too much during the first few chapters of the game, and this is okay. The game slowly adds new ammo types, various ways to combat rats, and new ways to use fire. Soldiers and rats are your enemies in this game and the rats are the most deadly. Outside of hiding and working your way around enemy soldiers, the rats are completely afraid of fire and light as it kills them instantly. The game has some sort of "rat" engine as thousands appear on scream and swarm around like bugs and it's rather disturbing to see at first. Various forms of fire will light your paths such as sticks that burn quickly and are used to solve puzzles, haystacks, torches, braziers, and various light sources. Some areas are puzzles that require you to light your path through rats and towards the end of the game, you can use the rats against soldiers since your ammo allows you to put out fires and not just start them. I won't give away the combat types towards the last 4 chapters as this will spoil a lot of the story. What makes the game so great is not just the story, amazing voice acting, and characters, but the combat unfolds so slowly throughout the game, and each combat scenario is different from the rest, that you want to keep playing. The game never gets boring and the environments are constantly changing. You also get to upgrade your sling with more ammo, faster reloading and aiming, and this is done by looting materials throughout the world. You can find work stations and later on you can acquire an upgrade that allows you to do the upgrades without a station. You can also craft ammo types which is essential for getting through the game. Towards the end of the game, you must think and really know your arsenal and various ways to get through combat areas are available that allow you to sneak or fight. The game also looks amazing with gorgeous vistas, amazing models and textures, and superb lighting effects. For an indie game, this is one of the best looking games this year and even has great controls and a good camera. Even having to have Hugo tag alongside you all the time doesn't get in the way. He's always holding Amecia's hand you never have to leave him to go do stuff and make him come back like other escort style games. Overall, A Plague Tale is one of the best games released this year and has everything going for it. It never got boring and was just so much fun to play through and I always wanted to know what was coming next and see Amecia, Hugo, and their friends make it through to the end. Sadly, with this being an indie game, a lot of people are not going to play this and I really hope to see more from this studio.

#gamereview Set in the 13th century France, two children find themselves in a desperate struggle to survive. Their parents were all killed by the Church hunting them all down. And there’s also the plague that ravaged the land with rats – massive ******* hordes of rats that will eat everything alive. A Plague Tale: Innocence is a third-person stealth adventure game about the journey of having been born at the wrong place and the wrong time. PROS: ● Fantastic overall art direction, almost a Renaissance painting come to digital life, with detailed environments and excellent atmospherics, until you get to the part with the rats and the game just turns to a ******* horror show ● The plot is well-written and pretty gripping, two children on the run from the church over the mysterious affliction of the younger brother in the midst of the rat infestation ● Characters are well-acted, designed and animated, and you will definitely feel their pain should one of them die or something ● Plenty of sequences of just pure horror and violence, like walking through a pile of mauled humans underneath a building where like dozens of dudes hang by their necks ● Those rats are just horrifying, and remarkably well-rendered and behaving properly considering millions of them appear in the screen at once ● Puzzles, primarily light-based to escape the frightening rats, are pretty nice but nothing really to sweat over, except maybe two ● That violin soundtrack is pretty cool, especially when mixed up with the rats ● Most boss fights are pretty cool and frantic, requiring active knowledge of what your arsenal can offer ● Thankfully, controlling two kids hanging on each other for dear life isn’t as cumbersome as expected CONS: ● Facial animations, though well-sculpted, lack just a tad in emotions and the lip-sync, or maybe they’re stuck in the French lip-sync ● The stealth system is pretty basic, with tons of conveniently placed cover to hide from enemies with a pretty inconsistent cone of vision and an easily exploitable fixed patrol route ● Pretty low enemy variety ● That auto-aim sure is helpful but still, PC nerds would probably want it turned off

Innocence is the beginning of a plague tale. Young siblings were cast off by unfortunate events in 1348 and are constantly in danger of a plague. Amicia and her half aged brother Hugo from de Rune family have become the target of the most evil they intend to avoid. However, the story of two gets more complicated as they must fight these enemies till the end. Game is story

Innocence is the beginning of a plague tale. Young siblings were cast off by unfortunate events in 1348 and are constantly in danger of a plague. Amicia and her half aged brother Hugo from de Rune family have become the target of the most evil they intend to avoid. However, the story of two gets more complicated as they must fight these enemies till the end. Game is story driven with lots of cut scenes and dialogues in between, heavily based on stealth rather than combat which is streamlined into using sling as a main weapon and alchemy as essential additions. Amicia is able to craft these potions on the go while upgrading her weapon and equipment only at the crafting table found throughout each section of game. Story Great. 5/5 Beautifully romanticized tale of evil versus good which is accompanied by great fully voiced performances, new characters giving it the proper spice of feel for believability. It spans to 1349 over the course of chapters towards the end. Game has got real fantasy features, like bloodthirsty rats, secret magic and seems to be set in realistic world. Details of pictures and symbols on the walls are also serving the story purpose, collectibles adding up to the educational level towards historical and factual grounds. Gameplay Great. 4.5/5 3rd person view. Female protagonist. More than a dozen of linear chapters with side roads for achievements and collectibles. There is so much loot all the time, essentially making each situation solvable. Puzzles are rather easy, in any case you have got enough time to think of them, no pressure. Enemies are mostly pretty passive or walking predictable paths with various options to distract or eliminate them. In case of disturbing enemies, there is fast action and movement required. There is no pacifist approach to most situations, making you lose the innocence in the process. However, Amicia leading her brother is teaching him something useful as well. Your inventory items and their respective recipes are being unlocked as you proceed, they are limited by maximum amount which can be improved by crafting bigger backpacks. Replayability Good. 3/5 I was looking under each stone besides the first chapter, while avoiding dangers I missed 11 achievements. I could find more flowers, gifts and even more peculiarities. To collect them all might be the reason to play the second time because otherwise the story and approach would be the same, unless maybe taking out more enemies and discovering interesting side stories. Graphics Nice. 5/5 Colorful and shadowy environments contrast each other. Sometimes blurry, sometimes very sharp. Daylight giving you chills, nighttime feeding you horrors. The stories are also much more lighthearted once the sun is up, stumbling across the dark areas filled with more scruples to overcome. Music 5/5 It is rather dynamic, emotional, mostly in the melancholic background, supporting storytelling and indicating something happening during moments. Hardware requirements Mid range. It ran very smooth and probably even lower range gaming PCs might run this. How difficult Easy. Normal. How long 10-19 hours. Verdict 9/10 Approachable adventure with kids and rich fantasy story with curses, easy puzzles requiring a little bit of patience, your companions will indicate solutions for you, linear world reminded me of Metro Last Light, enough space for running around and collecting interesting objects, beautiful atmosphere, smooth performance.

A Plague Tale: Innocence is a narrative-heavy action-stealth game set during the Hundred Years’ War in 1300’s France. You play as a young woman named Amicia de Rune as she finds herself and her little brother Hugo caught in the middle of an invading English army and a nasty plague of flesh-eating rats. You soon find out that their desperate expedition isn’t simply happenstance, and the fascinating plot had me guessing what was really going right until the credits rolled. There are two main gameplay loops that become familiar throughout the many distinct chapters. First is the stealth that has you sneaking past enemy soldiers using a repertoire of handy equipment, while the rest of the game has you puzzling your way around hordes of horrific rats. Various abilities unlock throughout the story and it was fun to use a wide assortment of them during the final few acts. Using fire/light rays to circumvent the hordes of rats was fun to solve as well, and some encounters were surprisingly clever. Both gameplay concepts are well designed with really good checkpointing, so even if you fail an encounter it puts you right back into the action fairly quickly. You’ll also be accompanied by other secondary characters frequently, but thankfully the game never feels like a giant escort mission. The presentation really needs to be commended here because it’s remarkable. Most of the voice performances are really good—Charlotte McBurney’s performance as Amicia is especially terrific—and the game’s atmosphere is fittingly bleak. The main narrative does lose a little steam in the last few chapters and there’s one late-game mechanic that felt a little under developed, but A Plague Tale is a shockingly great game. It’s not super long too—you can easily finish it in just a few sittings.