A Plague Tale: Innocence
Mid XIV century. Far from the best times in the history of France - the kingdom is engulfed in the Edwardian War, the bubonic plague is raging on the territory of the country, carried by rats, and the Holy Inquisition received all possible power into its own hands. And in this situation, two kids will have to survive - 15-year-old Amicia and her younger brother Hugo.
Dark Ages got their name for a reason
A Plague Tale: Innocence is a very dark and heavy game. Not in terms of gameplay, it's pretty standard here - stealth action with a bit of horror and puzzles. The gloom is manifested here in the setting, ambience and atmosphere.
The bubonic plague has its own personification - hordes of rats. There are not only many of them - they cover the streets and fields of medieval France with a living carpet. Even a short contact with them can kill Amicia - just a few seconds, and the girl is dead.
The children are followed by the Holy Inquisition. Moreover, the reason why the representatives of the church decided to deal with the girl and the boy remains unclear until the very end of the game. Inquisitors are cruel and dangerous - they "knock out" the main character with one blow.
And Amicia will have to go through all this cruel and gloomy France, in which every square meter is teeming with dangers. Walk through the narrow streets strewn with corpses. Through dilapidated churches filled with guards. Through fields covered with rats. Pass, survive and help the children left in France.
A Plague Tale: Innocence Gameplay
As mentioned above, A Plague Tale: Innocence is a stealth action game with puzzle and horror elements. Therefore, most of the gameplay is hide and seek. Amicia is a rather weak girl who is knocked out by the first guards she meets or is capable of killing hordes of rats.
Amicia constantly has to hide. She will hide in bushes, in caverns, behind walls and in other heaps of garbage, bending down, run past the guards and distract them by throwing stones at various pieces of iron. At the same time, Hugo himself can not stand it, scream in fright or in some other way give out his location.
The main danger in the world of A Plague Tale: Innocence is the plague rats. They are extremely cruel and dangerous. One accidental contact with these rodents - there are a lot of them, really, there are thousands of them, hordes, they cover the streets and fields with a living carpet - and the inscription “Amicia died” appears on the screen.
The rats themselves are something of a natural disaster. They are dangerous for everyone. A flock of rodents is capable of gnawing not only the main character, but also inquisitors or guards. The main thing is to draw their attention to opponents.
There is only one trick against rats - light. They are afraid of fire, torches, and during the day they do not crawl out of their underground shelters at all. Therefore, the rats can be dispersed in time with a lighted fire. Or, on the contrary, extinguish the torch of the guards - and then the soldiers of the Inquisition will be buried under a horde of plague furry killers.
Finally, Amicia has a weapon. A sling that the girl owns perfectly. True, it can only be used in infrequent, extreme cases. This is because the sling recharges very slowly. So Amicia can knock out one guard with a stone, but against several inquisitors walking directly at her, she is unable to do anything.
Over time, the possibilities of the sling expand. For example, you can make incendiary shells from saltpeter - and use them to build a fire in distant braziers, driving away flocks of rats from them. Or acid bombs - and throw them at opponents whose heads are protected by helmets or something similar. All this will have to be crafted, but, fortunately, the resources here are very generously scattered across the locations.
A Plague Tale: Innocence Puzzles
For a variety of gameplay, A Plague Tale: Innocence has puzzles. However, they are extremely simple and were added rather for show. By themselves, they are also story-oriented, with the rest of the characters helping to unravel them, giving various tips and tricks.
Some of the puzzles require collaboration. For example, in Chapter 7, you will need a second character - Hugo. Nothing more can be said, otherwise there will be spoilers.
The simplicity of the puzzles only underlines that A Plague Tale: Innocence is a story-driven game. The levels here are linear, if you need to make any choice, it is only insignificant, and the result of it helps to better understand the motivation and story of the characters. Moreover, for 10 hours of gameplay, there are a variety of scenes - some break into tears, others, on the contrary, cause joy along with the characters.
But do not hope for an exclusively positive outcome. A Plague Tale: Innocence is a very dark game in which children experience the horrors of war, epidemic, natural disaster and constant betrayal. And the "aftertaste" from it remains appropriate.
