A Plague Tale: Requiem

Everything I wrote about A Plague Tale: Innocence applies to its 2022 sequel, Requiem, as well. I don't know myself how one would exactly expand the adventure-stealth gameplay but you'd expect that at least the story would have some progression. But even that in Requiem is pretty much the same thing all over again.

Reheated rat jam

Requiem starts few months after the events of Innocence, meaning the main characters are of the same age -- I had hoped there'd be a bigger time skip so that Hugo wouldn't be as young and annoying. Things have been calm and eventless but a high stress situation triggers the rat boy again, causing the vermin and plague resurface. Amicia and Hugo de Rune are off to search for some kind of salvation once more.

Along the way they again meet dangers in the form of ravenous rats and hostile humans. There are some helpful folk too, some of them again joining the siblings to offer their helpful skills. It all plays very much the same.

Again too, even on low graphics settings, Requiem is picturesque as hell. If there's something Asobo Studio is truly great at, it's creating visually pleasing environments. The game even ran smoother than the first game for me after it got an optimization patch in the middle of my playthrough.

Very few changes to the gameplay

Amicia loses all of her gear at the start and you have to reacquire her tools and tricks. I found it even a bit frustrating how much time Requiem spends teaching you all the old stuff: I would have been fine if it had jumped straight to the endgame tool variety (as much as there is of it anyway). There are some little changes too though: for instance, I think the locations are more open from the start, allowing you to pick your way freely. I also don't remember Innocence having a passive skill upgrade system based on how you got through a map.

The passive upgrades aren't hugely impactful: it is mostly the final one of each path that appeared good. I went for the stealth one initially because I thought that being able to instantly kill armored knights with a knife would be handy. As it turned out, however, knights weren't really a problem. They were easy enough to kill with the use of other tools and maybe more rewarding that way too. The single use shivs are rare as well and the few I found I used to open alchemy crafting tables.

I probably missed a bunch of the knives too. Like in Innocence, I tried to find all collectibles and secrets on my own but despite the game's overall linearity, I missed many of them. Had I played the game on Steam (and thus cared more about achievements), I would have used a guide for that. I did however find excessive amounts of crafting materials. That encouraged me to eventually use everything at my disposal and I never ended up maxing any of the passive trees.

Requiem left me with an oddly similar feeling I had after watching Titane earlier this year. The game has about nothing in common with the art film but I guess there's some similar French vibe to the both of them. Like it all felt kind of pointless in the end. I guess if one is really invested in the characters or the story of Innocence, Requiem is worth playing too. I suppose you can jump straight into it without having played the first game too.

Oh, you have two shields now?