A Plague Tale: Requiem

A Plague Tale: Requiem deserves your time in every sense of the word and it is a story that will live on in my mind for years to come. The powerful, emotional heartaches that you will no doubt experience by the incredible cast of characters continue to impress after the credits roll.

A Plague Tale: Requiem is a superb sequel that fixes or improves nearly everything from the original while telling one of the most emotionally harrowing stories of the year.

Asobo Studio’s A Plague Tale: Innocence captivated players in 2019 with a surprisingly deep, dark storyline that no one expected out of a brand-new IP. Its gloomy, gritty atmosphere paired well with the grim tale of Amicia de Rune and her little brother Hugo, both struggling against overwhelming odds to escape the Black Plague, known as the Bite. It’s a bleak yarn steeped in terrifying moments as two young children struggle to survive in the rat-infested French countryside. Now, it’s been given a sequel in the form of A Plague Tale: Requiem, a follow-up that’s every bit as great (and in some w...

A Plague Tale: Requiem expands and improves upon its predecessor in nearly every way, delivering a meaty, excellently crafted, visually stunning, and thoroughly engaging experience.

A sequel that gets all its rats in a row.

Questionable story beats and tedious combat arenas aside, A Plague Tale: Requiem polishes and refines its stealth action gameplay while keeping its focus on its core cast of characters

A Plague Tale: Requiem is an incredible continuation to an amazing story and has many improvements that streamline the gameplay. On the Steam Deck, it will require some compromises, but if you can handle them, it will ultimately be a rewarding experience.

And so what? I’m not a huge fan of how bulky the environment feels at times, and the walking sections can become tiresome, but the truth is, Requiem had me engaged from start to finish. Sure, the game has its flaws, and it’s not a very malleable experience, but that doesn’t stop it from being a good time all the same. At its heart, A Plague Tale is a narrative-driven atmospheric experience. Everything else is just icing on the cake.

“A Plague Tale: Requiem improves on its predecessor with gorgeous visuals and more varied gameplay, but it struggles to balance its increased action and morally nuanced storytelling.”

A Plague Tale: Requiem outdoes its predecessor in many ways. Its story, for example, manages to be even more engaging and touching, while numerous gameplay enhancements make it a deeper, more varied affair. It’s just a shame that its first quarter isn’t better paced, relying too much on you manipulating rats with light, and that its combat sections just aren’t fun at all. Add in a myriad of performance issues and bugs, and you have a game that somewhat squanders its phenomenal potential, but is still very much worth playing.

An unforgettable story of desperation and hope in beautiful, gruesome, plague-ridden 14th Century France.

A bigger, bleaker sequel with hauntingly good art direction, but storytelling holds this biting medieval adventure back.