A Plague Tale: Requiem Review (serac_ydobon)
TL;DR:
The game has some bugs, and very visible performance issues - but surpasses the first game in storytelling, visuals and mechanics. Asobo Studio rises from the AA game tier to AAA, with A Plague Tale: Requiem being easily comparable to the Witcher II or Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. All performance issues and bugs diminish in the bigger scope of the experience.
THE PROS:
- Fleshed out characters, visible and tangible character growth and likable personalities.
- Extremely gorgeous graphics - I would easily compare it to The Witcher III or Senua's Sacrifice.
- 16+ hours of gameplay, with mediocre replay-value.
- Predictable but highly enjoyable story: A Plague Tale: Requiem doesn't pretend to reinvent the wheel, it just gives it a different shape. You can expect to see plot twists from a mile away - but it's worthy to mention, this whole story is Asobo's own, and isn't built on an existing set of 6+ books like The Witcher.
- Mechanics build on the previous game's well known tools, but also introduce a couple of new elements.
- Ultrawide support! No more hexcode editing as with the previous game. Truly a welcome feature - all 2022+ games should have support for it (unlike Overwatch 2, which took a step back...).
- New Game +, with it's own difficulty: if you are thinking about running through the game again, for collectibles - this is definitely a highly welcome addition.
- Olivier Deriviere's soundtrack, as well known from the first game, heightens emotions and keeps you at your seat's edge at all times. A perfect blend and transition from stealth to fighting, from recurring character themes to lore highlighting points.
THE CONS:
- Facial expression animation is inconsistent; sometimes it's peak motioncapture, sometimes early 2000's failed lipsync.
- A Plague Tale: Requiem moved from the previous game's Unreal 4 engine to Asobo's proprietary one. While this lets them control more easily aspects of the game, it has led to wild FPS fluctuations, and performance issues even on top-of-the-range custom PC's. 10th gen intel I7, 32GB of RAM, RTX 3080 - and I still get fluctuations between 30fps and 120, indifferent of the settings I use.
- A few game-breaking bugs, that require reloading previous chapter points. I've encountered maybe only one or two of these, and it wasn't too annoying though.
CONCLUSION:
Although the game has its issues, it's easily one of my favourites from 2022. A fresh breath of air in the current microtransaction-riddled open-world games that give you tedious repetitive sidequests - A Plague Tale: Requiem does what it does best: heart-wrenching storytelling set in the Middle Ages, rural landscapes and castles, in the same linear fashion we are used to, but with 10X more to explore in each new region.
Worth the full price if you loved the first game - if you're new to the series, I'd recommend picking up A Plague Tale: Innocence with a discount, then decide if you are further interested in Amicia and Hugo's story.
All my love to Asobo and Olivier Deriviere for this experience.