A Plague Tale: Innocence

Not sure if any of you have given this one a try yet. It's a survival horror themed game set in the Middle Ages during the Black Plague and the Hundred Years War and the setting is France.

In the game, you play a young woman who has to escort her step brother to safety. There is an inquisition that is hunting the boy because there is something about him they want, and as the story unfolds you gradually come to learn what that is. I think there may be some horror themed sci-fi elements as well, as there are many instances where you have to avoid plague crazed hordes of rats.

This game is mostly a narrative experience, linear in its progression and with most of its solutions being puzzle based. There is no real combat to speak of, although you can use your sling in some situations.

There is some crafting to upgrade your inventory capacity, sling effectiveness and speed and your stealth aspects. Also, as you learn alchemy, you get to mix new kinds of potions that have varying effects on enemies and the environment.

The game isn't what I'd call complex or sophisticated in terms of its mechanics or resources. It has just enough variety to enhance the mounting dread and bleak environments. Since this is happening during a war, expect to see lots of bodies, soldiers on patrol and devastated villages and countrysides.

It's all in service to the story, which is intriguing because of how it attempts to navigate two young people across a war torn and plague ravaged country, and you meet all kinds of people, both good and bad, along the way.

I consider this along the lines of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice in terms of its scale; ambitious ideas executed on a budget to make an engaging, sometimes gripping and intense, experience.

It's sort of like The Last of Us on a diet and absent the sometimes pretentious elements of that game (although I thoroughly enjoyed the Last of Us and consider it one of the best games of the last generation).

The important thing to note is that this game doesn't pull its punches. It's pretty visceral and violent at times. It also says some interesting things about the Doctrine of Man, as opposed to the Will of God. This aspect of the game is more modern than contemporary, and I'd have preferred it the other way around, but they get around this by making the mother of the characters a practicing alchemist, so they grew up around it or exposed to the ideas of science. It's a postmodern cheat, but one that is good enough and well enough rooted in historical precedent to get me to buy in.

Anyway, here's a trailer. This is a budget buy for most folks but it's trying some new things with the genre and medium. Worth a look at a good price. I predict that some day this will be free on Plus and Games With Gold. Who can say?

I was tempted by this, but my backlog is too stupid right now. Reminds me of what Ninja Theory were going for with Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice a little.

I've been tracking this game for months now and have been really looking forward to it, if for no other reason than the setting and subject matter really fall in line with my historical interests. Well, that, and the dynamic between the characters seems to be really well crafted.

Played it. It was alright but gets samey pretty quickly.

pixeljunkie said:

I was tempted by this, but my backlog is too stupid right now. Reminds me of what Ninja Theory were going for with Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice a little.

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An astute observation. This feels like this year's Hellblade. A brilliant looking and sounding game with somme base core mechanics and linear gameplay. Bot this game and Hellblade are greater than the sum of their parts but the limitations, while noticeable, don't take away from the overall impression.

So I just finished this up.

It...wasn't what I expected it to be.

This is purely a work of science fiction.

Not in the 'space alien' sense but...yeah.

Maybe I was looking for something more based in history. The prospect of a survival horror game taking place during the Hundred Years War when the Great Mortality was ravaging Europe was intriguing to me and the trailers, I felt, had sold me just that experience.

What we get, instead is:



When I learned that all this was going on, I immediately realized that the devs didn't actually study any of the history related to the time period. Or if they did, they're soulless husks because that period in history is VASTLY more interesting than what they did in this game. It ended up being a huge letdown when I learned what was actually going on.

The time period, the setting, the locations....all of it was just a big lie to tell a sci-fi story that had nothing to do with the actual setting and era.

What a wasted opportunity to reinterpret the survival horror genre by actually using the Great Mortality and all of the crazy ways in which it changed people and society. It was a true post apocalyptic era, with people doing all kinds of crazy things to try to eliminate the plague, trying all kinds of fallacious remedies and killing each other and looting and pillaging and raping because society had broken down in a lot of places. And then there was all the paranoia and brutal quarantines and the self flagellants. The game starts out very strong with these elements but after the first few chapters, this may as well be 'Sling Girl and Sick Boy Versus Medieval Times Extras.'

Also, there was some jarringly anachronistic dialogue in this game. I don't expect a game published in 2019 to be a perfect historical account, but when characters in the middle ages are saying things like 'It was epic!' and 'She's just mad. Full stop!', I dream of dropping the entire studio with an atomic grade Stone Cold Stunner.

I also take issue with the lack of superstition and spirituality exhibited by the characters. The main characters, mostly young people, are written as though they're smarter than the world they live in. Religion is a boogeyman and they all see through it. None of them has the fear of God in them. Science isn't treated as a journey out of superstition and into understanding but as just another way to get things done. There are even parts where the main character goes down into a tomb and she doesn't recite one actual prayer, which she most certainly would have known. And the game doesn't go out of its way to demonstrate that she has little or no faith to speak of When she prays, she just sort of stands around and 'talks' to God.

I am not a devout Christian or anything like that, but I don't think people understand that in Europe in the middle ages, Christianity wasn't just something you either did or didn't do. It was as real to those people as traffic lights are to us, an inescapable reality of the times. God was to be revered and feared and religion, whatever you think of it, was a force for order in those times. There wasn't even a time where, when the characters were scared, they prayed for God's blessing.

I find this incredibly offputting. I know that religion is out of vogue in the tech industry, and I get why. But Goddammit, if you set a game in France in the middle ages and you don't go out of your way to explain the incredibly improbable reasons why no one in this game is devout, except for maybe the mother (for reasons I would rather not reveal), then there's no reason to make a character driven game in that setting. Just set it in modern times in some rural community and be done with it.

The gameplay and puzzle elements are fine. The game gives you a variety of ways to clear areas and advance, and I appreciate the soundtrack and graphics. The voice acting is actually pretty strong, too. But the trash tier YA heroes and the offputting disregard for the very setting they chose for this game just flat out disappointed me.

On its technical merits, I'd give it 3.5 out of 5. On a limited budget, what they did was impressive.

On its narrative merits, it rates a 1. Colossal waste of potential.

Play Kkngdom Come: Deliverance if you want an authentic feeling Middle Ages experience. It may be a knockoff of Bethesda product, but it's vastly more earnest to provide a legitimate experience relative to the setting.

Aw, now that's a shame because I was interested in a tale of the time with which it appears to be in. That period in time is so rich with mystery and intrigue, much like the mythos that has grown around Hitler's fanaticism for the occult in WW2, I was looking for a story that would really get me invested in that time period and have me theorizing long after the credits roll.

Well, thanks for taking one for the team Taiso.

Renmauzo said:

Aw, now that's a shame because I was interested in a tale of the time with which it appears to be in. That period in time is so rich with mystery and intrigue, much like the mythos that has grown around Hitler's fanaticism for the occult in WW2, I was looking for a story that would really get me invested in that time period and have me theorizing long after the credits roll.

Well, thanks for taking one for the team Taiso.

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Yeah, it was a real letdown.

It's not that the game is bad, but more that it didn't need to devolve into YA science fiction that has nothing to do with the Hundred Years War or the Great Mortality. These things may as well be a tapestry for the players to tell their own far less interesting story.

Such a wasted opportunity.

I just started playing this game and am wary by what you say Taiso but then I didn't read the spoiler though I get the feeling this is going to turn into something weird.
I will say this, unfortunately for me, Senua is unplayable. The frame rate destroys my brain and I feel nauseous for hours post playing. Really crazy.
It is really refreshing to be able to play a game in the same apparent vein without feeling like shit.
So if the whole game was like it is for the first couple of chapters it would be brilliant, no need to go much beyond the horror that was the plague. The village part is very reminiscent of the village area in RE4, which is good.
I like very much how streamlined this experience is. Arcadey in a sense.
Apparently a sequel is planned or in the works, so maybe they can pull their socks up.