A Plague Story: Innocence was a breakout hit: it got here from just about nowhere, infested the minds of avid gamers the world over, and gnawed via any preconceptions of what everybody thought could be simply one other stealth sport’. Asobo Studio picked up accolades starting from finest narrative, finest artwork path and studio of the yr – in addition to a slew of Sport of the 12 months awards – for its sleeper hit effort with the primary sport within the collection. And rightly so; not often can we see tales so affecting, so artfully achieved, and so sublimely grotesque… all on the similar time.
So, following up with A Plague Story: Requiem was by no means going to be a simple feat. Asobo wasn’t even certain if it’d get to make a sequel to the sport while the unique was in growth – and that’s in all probability for the very best. It means the unique story wasn’t chopped up, butchered, and Frankenstein’d again collectively for the sake of a sequel. It signifies that every sport retains its personal identification, its personal outlook, and its personal tackle the place storytelling and mechanics intersect. It signifies that Requiem, from what we’ve seen thus far, is much more harrowing than its predecessor.
From a top-down view, Requiem could be very far more of the identical: excessive constancy graphics, an emphasis on stealth, deep and unsettling horror thumbed into each pore of the sport. Wherever you do, there’s the chattering of rats and the pungent odor of dying – it is a world the place Europe continues to be within the grips of a heaving infestation, in any case. Your actions within the final sport haven’t solved the vermin epidemic. However the place the primary sport made you’re feeling underpowered and susceptible, simply kids making an attempt to outlive in a world completely hostile to life, Requiem makes you the menace – in some quietly horrifying methods.
In an hour-long demo on the sales space, I received to expertise Amicia and Hugo’s persevering with story from a means into the follow-up. The dynamic has modified: these kids are nonetheless on their again foot, they’re nonetheless hunted, underpowered, and weak. However Amicia has hardened up after her encounter with the Inquisitors earlier than; she’s armed with a crossbow now, for when she sometimes should deploy long-range, deadly techniques as a way to transfer on. Ammo is scarce, as you’d anticipate, and the emphasis continues to be on stealth, and shifting rats round with gentle and fireplace as a way to eke out passages amongst the threats.
We’re dropped into the sport about midway via, the place Amicia has been badly damage. She’s placing on a courageous face for little Hugo, however there’s not a lot energy left in her. Ever the massive sister, she’s guiding him to an island that haunts his goals – maybe the place regardless of the hell is occurring with him might be exorcised, or not less than understood. As Amicia struggles with the guilt of slaughtering to outlive, an understanding however equally traumatized Hugo has been opening as much as his older sister about his relationship with the rats: how he can speak to them, really feel them, management them. Amicia, after all, is cautious. These are simply the fantasies of a poor, traumatized boy, proper? No. No, they’re not.
All of it involves a head when Amicia lastly provides in to her wounds: she collapses on the ground, simply as some Inquisitor guards are bearing down on the sibling duo. Hugo, distraught, and about to lose the final individual in his life he can depend upon, calls out to the rats. They hear his plea, and provides themselves unto him – the true horror begins.
For those who thought watching Amicia fall sufferer to swarms of rats within the first sport was unsettling, this ups the ante tenfold – seizing command of the horde and making an attempt to usher it round with free, bumpy controls feels simply terrible in your fingers. But it surely’s compelling; you’re pushed on, pushed, and may’t flip again – you’re only a tide of rats destroying every thing in its path. All of the whereas, you hear the disembodied cries of Hugo, pressured to observe the carnage he’s inflicting.
You management the swarm, crazed and gnashing, and also you’re pressured to chase down the guards, chattering away and stripping flesh from the bones of any residing factor in your path. You possibly can’t progress till you will have (and I’d wager different puzzles will want you to skinny out the guards’ ranks in future, too). To listen to the animal chattering of the rats as Hugo moans and resists… it’s a really totally different flavour of unsettling in comparison with the primary sport, but it surely’s unsettling nonetheless. Worse when you’re taking part in with an honest pair of headphones. Makes you’re feeling such as you want a bathe. God is aware of how poor Hugo feels.
Narrative implications apart, this new mechanic opens up the straight-forward stealth nature that the collection has existed inside thus far. It layers some further texture on prime of what was already a best-in-class narrative stealth expertise. I’ve some reservations about pacing – this demo was midway via the sport, and nonetheless appeared to be introducing you to new mechanics – but when the primary sport is something to go by Asobo is aware of what it’s doing.
I’m desirous to play the total model of A Plague Story: Requiem – and I’m much more desirous to see the dialog it’ll kick up when everybody with a Sport Go subscription will get the prospect to choose it up later this yr. I’m trying ahead to seeing whether or not I’m simply delicate, or if the act of chasing fathers, husbands, and lovers down as a pack of rats actually is as upsetting because it was on the Gamescom present flooring.
I’m simply not relishing the very fact it’s going to make me hear the chittering and chattering of rats all over the place I’m going for the subsequent week afterwards.
A Plague Story: Requiem releases on October 22, 2022 on Xbox Collection X|S, PlayStation 5, PC, and in Cloud Model on Nintendo Swap.
