END OF ΙΝΝOCENCE

A Plague Tale returns with picturesque views, tougher children – and millions more rats

- Jon Bailes

Only moments into our demo session of A Plague Tale: Requiem, we realise something already feels different from the previous game. Roaming around the limestone buildings of an unidentified market town, the scattered civilians we encounter are neither running for their lives nor hunting us with sharpened tools. This is the first time since young protagonist Amicia de Rune left her cosy mansion estate and its friendly servants at the beginning of A Plague Tale: Innocence that we’ve seen ordinary folk simply going about their business. The fact that we can’t converse with them is frankly a relief – it’s nice to find that there are people in this world so utterly detached from Amicia and her woes.

Because, of course, some things don’t change: Amicia still has plenty of woes, and they’re still centred on her little brother, Hugo. Six months on from the events of Innocence, the De Runes, along with fellow survivor Lucas, are travelling south through France, escaping memories of demonic rat swarms and the French Inquisition. The plague has abated, and for a while the ‘macula’ disease/curse that tormented Hugo throughout the first game fell dormant. Yet as you might expect given the existence of this sequel, the peace fails to last, and at the point we’re handed control of Amicia, early in the game, Hugo is already relapsing. We don’t even see the boy himself. He’s a presence behind a locked door as a frantic Amicia sets off with Lucas to seek assistance from a renowned alchemist.