Like a sugar-crazed child working their way to the bottom of a Halloween bag full of treats, A Plague Tale: Requiem is confident that the elements that made the first game great will be even more delectable in ludicrous quantities.
Oh, you liked massive swarms of rats? Well, how about we increase their numbers to an insane degree? You enjoyed a gruesome and harrowing journey that tested the limits of your emotional resilience? Great! Let’s crank up your personal suffering by 200%!
This follow-up to one of my favorite action-adventure games from the previous console generation turns the dials up to 11 in practically every way—and overwhelmingly benefits from those escalations, despite occasionally being a bit heavy on the nihilism. With improved stealth action mechanics, a fantastic and deeply depressing story, and graphics that had me gawking, A Plague Tale: Requiem is an impressive glow-up that’s easily worth the immense horrors it subjected me to.
Following in the creepy, skittering footsteps of its predecessor, A Plague Tale: Innocence, Requiem is a somber third-person action-adventure game set in an alternate history version of 14th-century France during the Hundred Years’ War. You play as Amicia, the older sister to an afflicted and disturbed young boy named Hugo, and must navigate both beautiful and dystopian areas, flee from a tsunami of plague rats, and sneak or murder your way through an army of half-witted soldiers—all in the name of saving your brother.
You’ll spend your time tiptoeing past enemies who can kill you almost instantly in competent but unoriginal stealth action, or using light sources to navigate through hordes of ravenous, man-eating rats in much more memorable puzzle-based areas.
The best sections, though, combine both elements, forcing you to contend with not only the terrifying flood of rats but also soldiers who are dumb enough to try and kill you while surrounded by a problem they should probably be more concerned about. In between all the action, you’ll unravel the incredibly bizarre and excessively complex mystery of your brother’s illness, meeting memorable characters along the way—some of whom are nuanced and well-written, while others just want to murder you because they’re insane sociopaths and everything in this world is awful.
If you thought the original Plague Tale was grim, this follow-up is so dark and pessimistic that it makes its predecessor look bright-eyed and upbeat by comparison. Even though Amicia, Hugo, and their companions never seem to lose hope and form heartwarming bonds of camaraderie as the world collapses around them, it’s still exhausting to have your dreams crushed for 20 hours as you’re continuously betrayed, maimed, forced to watch the people you care about die, and subjected to horrors that would break a normal person in minutes.
That said, the story is still incredibly well-told, filled with unforgettable moments that left my mouth agape and my head turning to imaginary referees in anticipation of a flag being thrown for being too over-the-top. I also adored the resilient and ill-tempered Amicia and genuinely wanted to fight to defend her lovable brother, Hugo, like he was my own kin.
The writing and performances are so strong all around that it’s hard not to feel something—whether positive or negative—for the entire cast. A few parts of this enjoyable journey can be a bit convoluted or meandering at times, but I ultimately came away glad I put myself through the horrors of rat hell for the story I got in exchange.
Requiem doesn’t do a ton to distinguish itself from Innocence when it comes to gameplay, but it does refine the existing blueprint to great effect. Some of the weaker moments are the standard stealth action sequences where you’re sneaking around or strategically eliminating soldiers as you work your way toward an objective. Using the sling, crossbow, and alchemical tricks at Amicia’s disposal isn’t boring by any means, but it also doesn’t do much I haven’t seen in numerous stealth games before.
You can distract enemies by throwing rocks, use fire to ignite dangerous items in the environment to take threats out, and sneak up on enemies to kill them—standard fare for the genre.
In fairness, there are some interesting ways you can use your alchemy bag to throw your enemies under the rat bus, like the extinguishing powder that can put out fires, leaving nearby baddies open to getting mauled by thousands of tiny teeth. But most of these tricks aren’t new to the series.
The only truly standout addition Requiem brings is that NPC allies can now mix up your stealth options with their own special abilities. One ally, Lucas, can stun enemies with his stupifacio powder, while a soldier named Arnaud can be directed to confront enemies in open battle. Whichever character happens to be with you at a given point in the story is likely to influence your strategy when approaching certain obstacles, and this adds a nice layer of variety to what would otherwise be fairly standard stealth gameplay.
It’s only when the glorious and absolutely horrifying rats come into play that Requiem really shines. This sequel had me questioning everything I thought I knew about my red-eyed foes. In Innocence, the rats coated the floors and served as a creative version of “the floor is lava,” whereas in Requiem, they’re a true force of nature—capable of bursting through stone walls, piling on one another to reach tall surfaces, and even swallowing entire cities whole.
You’ll still encounter plenty of areas where you have to move past floors covered with filthy, biting rats by using light sources to repel them in creative ways. But now, there are also sections where no amount of light can save you from literal tidal waves of rats barreling toward you. And it’s awful—in the best kind of way.
That said, solving the rat-centric puzzles that stand between you and your objective is almost always a breeze, even if they are very cool. It’s definitely satisfying, for example, to shoot down hunks of meat to distract a group of rats long enough to make a run for it. However, the solutions are almost always immediately apparent, or they’re directly revealed through the campaign’s extensive tutorial. A few new wrinkles make for some memorable moments, like using the crossbow to shoot fire arrows into the environment to create small pockets of safety from the rats, or throwing tar onto a fire to make it burn brighter for a short time, extending its bubble of safety. But even in these cases, I rarely felt challenged by the obstacles and mostly breezed through them without ever feeling like I wasn’t in control.
However, my favorite parts of Requiem were when rats and soldiers occupied the same space, forcing me to juggle both stealth and puzzle-solving at the same time. There were moments where I’d try to find the perfect window to slip past a group of guards, only to find an army of rats waiting in the darkness ahead, sending me running back into hiding before the guards could spot me in a panic. On the other hand, sometimes I would find a clever way to get past a section of rats, only for my actions to draw the attention of a guard, who would then put an arrow through my chest just as I thought I’d achieved victory.
Managing these two threats simultaneously was not only challenging and unique, but absurdly fun, testing the limits of my creativity and grit.
A Plague Tale: Requiem is an impressive sequel to one of my favorite action-adventure games, upping the ante in almost every way. It doesn’t do a ton to distinguish itself from its predecessor in terms of gameplay mechanics, but with the depressing yet awesome story, fantastic graphics, and unforgettable rat-filled moments, this unique adventure definitely deserves your attention.
I do wish it were more ambitious with its stealth-action sandbox and took more risks, but it’s still a worthy follow-up that left me with some great memories—and a few recurring nightmares.