A Plague Tale an action-stealth game that will infect you with heart

While most stealth games have you playing as weapon-wielding thieves or assassins, Plague Tale’s protagonist is a young girl trying to protect her brother, who relies on patience and puzzle solving. And the result has a lot of heart.

In my line of work, games are constantly finding their way on to my desk (or rather, into my inbox nowadays — as download codes are the norm), and as such I tend to lose track of the ‘hype train’ of what’s coming up, what’s hotly-anticipated and which games have people wondering.

A Plague Tale: Innocence is a game that completely slipped under the radar.

I knew little about it or its developer Asobo Studio whose previous titles include a handful of kids games like Kinect Rush: A Disney Pixar Adventure and Ratatouille.

Not exactly the type of fare to have one feeling confident about a gruesome adventure game set amid the turmoil of a plague-ridden medieval setting.

As it turns out, I was wrong to be sceptical.

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I was immediately struck by A Plague Tale’s beauty — the idyllic setting of country France, light filtering through the trees.

The protagonist a young girl called Amicia, who is forced to flee her home with her younger brother.

Loading up Plague Tale, I was immediately struck by its beauty, the idyllic setting of country France, light filtering through the trees, a painterly-like quality to the colour palette and tremendous detail in the rendering.

I played this on console and I can only imagine how it must shine on PC.

Our protagonist a young girl called Amicia (a delightfully trend-bucking choice for an action-stealth game like this) is hunting in the woods with her father, a French Lord, when they come across something dark and evil emerging from the ground.

There are some gruesome, fantastical horror elements to the game that have you immediately on edge — the magical fantasy forest setting quickly devolving into a shadowy, terrifying nightmare in mere moments.

But the story remains well-grounded in history, too — as the setting serves not only to highlight the horrors of The Black Death, but the harrowing and relentless conflict brought about by the Hundred Years War. It brings an admirable quality of authenticity to the experience which I was not at all expecting.

A series of rather unfortunate events sees Amicia fleeing her family home with her younger brother Hugo, and we experience the rest of the game from their eyes.

As a player you’ll be guiding these characters through the world, working both in tandem as well as the occasional solo run when they are forced to separate and face the world’s dangers alone.

As a player you’ll be guiding these characters through the world, working both in tandem as well as the occasional solo run.

The focus in A Plague Tale becomes more on stealth and puzzle-solving.

This also means you are somewhat limited in what you can accomplish. If you were hoping for a sword-swinging medieval knight to take charge-of in this adventure, you’ll be disappointed.

Asobo Studio have however made this very deliberate choice after being influenced by more narrative-driven titles like The Last Of Us and Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons — games that are very much centred around the relationship between two characters who move through the world together.

The focus, then, becomes more on stealth and puzzle-solving — with Amicia’s main weapon being a sling which she uses to distract enemies or hurl rocks at their skulls.

This sense of ‘togetherness’ is also reinforced by the fact that Hugo will freak-out and attract unwanted attention if left alone in most cases. It seems like an irritating device at first, but it forces you to work within limits that create an interesting challenge.

I love stealth. I’m not always great at it, because I’m fighting against my own impatience — but that’s part of the beauty of it.

Where most games see you testing your reflexes — this will see you relying on your patience. On a journey like this, you can never simply run charging into the fray. Every move must be calculated, tense and measured.

A Plague Tale has a heavy narrative focus.

If you were hoping for a sword-swinging medieval knight to take charge-of in this adventure, you’ll be disappointed.

Not to mention facing the more horrifying aspects of the game from the perspective of children heightens the experience immeasurably — which is another very deliberate choice designed to have you emotionally invested even further.

I find that in any game where you are tasked with looking after another character — in Amicia’s case, her little brother — you feel the stakes are instantly higher. Suddenly it’s not just your life on the line, you are charged with the protection of another, and every false step or poor decision will undoubtedly affect their fate.

Plague Tale plays this angle very well, tugging relentlessly on your heartstrings with some wonderfully superb voice acting throughout.

There is a heavy narrative focus to the experience, and while conversations can tend drag on a little bit at times — for the most part I was grateful that a real sense of care and effort had been put into crafting this story with such detail and quality.

If you’re looking for a fast-paced sword-and-board medieval adventure — you won’t find it here.

While there are certainly moments of action and conflict, the approach is less hands-on, as being children — you must be more creative with how you navigate danger.

But as a story-driven game it seeks to subvert the norm, which is admirable.

While the device of placing the player into the shoes of children in order to heighten the drama isn’t exactly a new one, its as effective as ever, and I felt thoroughly drawn into this tale with all of its terror, heart and sense of adventure.