Let me preface this by saying that the first game I played extensively was Assassin's Creed Odyssey. I bought the game for the Ancient Greek setting as I was (and still am) a Greek mythology enthusiast. It immediately hooked me with the incredibly gorgeous recreation of the Ancient Greek world and the freedom I could have in this open-world setting. So, I stuck to playing open-world games for a while. The next few games I played were games in the Assassin's Creed series, Watch Dogs, and Horizon Zero Dawn. Even though I was glued to open-world games, I was still actively searching for more games to entertain my boring life, and I had to look beyond the open-world genre to achieve that. I was more hesitant than I should be when it came to choosing which games to play, as I was afraid that I wouldn't like games from other genres and would waste my hard-earned money. Eventually I did take important steps forward to try out games that I would've never touched, and then another step, followed by another step. So, here are the games that piqued my interest and then proceeded to draw me into the wider video games world.
A Plague Tale: Innocence (2019) and Requiem (2022) are linear story-driven games, meaning the narrative takes center stage while gameplay takes a back seat, which is the opposite of the open-world games that I had played. It appeared on my radar because of how French the games are. A Plague Tale series is developed by a French studio, set in medieval France, and it has a cast of French voices to bring the characters to life. Why French? Simply because I was learning French and I was actively looking for anything French to consume – be it music, movies, TV shows, or in this case, video games. Even though I was hesitant to buy the game due to its distinct differences from all the open-world games I used to play, my desire to consume French media eventually drove me to purchase the game. And A Plague Tale exceeded my expectations.
A Plague Tale Innocence. Source: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/a-plague-tale-innocence
A Plauge Tale Requiem. Source: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/a-plague-tale-requiem
The gameplay of both games puts emphasis on stealth. Although the gameplay mechanics are straightforward and easy to grasp, stealth may not be everyone's cup of tea. Players would learn to distract the enemies before making any move in order to stay undetected. Furthermore, a variety of tools are also introduced to enable players to manipulate the environments (mostly rats) to their advantage, offering more ways to avoid or take down enemies and advance through levels. Yes, rats play a significant role in both gameplay and storytelling in the games. The simplistic gameplay is not exactly game-of-the-year kind of game design, but it presents just enough challenge to make the game interesting.
What makes A Plague Tale truly shines is the narrative. The core of A Plague Tale's phenomenal storytelling is the relationship between the protagonist Amicia and her younger brother Hugo. The writers abandon the idea that blood relation inherently comes with intimate connection between two people, instead, they begin the story with Amicia and Hugo having a relationship similar to that between distant cousins. It builds such relationship on the hardship they endure alongside each other throughout the game. Their shared experience of surviving in a hostile world is the basis of their bond. It's unique, it's solid, and it's profoundly more compelling than a bond of mere kinship. Innocence's narrative portrays the growth of their bond, its sequel Requiem then continues the story with how their relationships strengthen, evolve, and shatter in the face of great challenges, and brings the story of Amicia and Hugo to an end. A Plague Tale series brings players along the adventure of Amicia and Hugo, it would make you laugh and make you cry. Through amazing storytelling, the games both warmed and broke my heart. Devastatingly tragic is how I would describe A Plague Tale. If you want to feel something, do play these games.
A Plague Tale Innocence and Requiem not only are themselves exceptional video games (Requiem wasn't nominated for the Game of the Year for nothing), but also have encouraged me to look out for other story-driven games with incredible storytelling. Who doesn't love a good story?
