A Plague Tale: Innocence

8.5/10 - a rare stealth puzzle-adventure story rich game that continues to wow 7 years after release. Reminds me of a blend of The Last of Us and Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice. Haunting and fitting soundtrack (particularly "Father" and "Beyond the Horizon"), emotional story, impressive cinematic visuals, unique setting (France 1348 Black Death), interesting game mechanic (rat physics and models), and memorable characters (the growth and forging of the bond between Amicia and her little brother Hugo). It is important to know beforehand that the navigation is linear, stealth/combat on the simpler side, some chapters move slowly, and AI is a bit befuddling at times (I moved a light away from you and you didn't notice etc). These could be potential turn offs for those expecting more or something realistic. For achievement hunters, this is one of the easier completions (3/10 difficulty and 15-20 hours completion). There are collectibles and various missables to be mindful of. Fully equipping the sling/equipment will require you to be thorough in exploring the level for materials and only crafting ammunition when you absolutely need.

This game is really underrated, I'm happy my crappy laptop managed to run it very smooth, the game is very interesting and addictive at the same time currently at chapter 14, not hard to play and very manageable with a game controller. I highly recommended it!

[h3]Локальный средневековый апокалипсис.[/h3] [b]Понравилось:[/b] • Персонажи и драма • Густая атмосфера • Гнетущий саспенс • Растущий масштаб событий • Простой и уместный крафтинг • Озвучка (да, не официальная) Если бы я играл своевременно и в год выхода, то впечатления были бы куда ярче. Сейчас проект все еще хорош и вызывает эмоции, но уже имеющийся сюжетный бэкграунд в плане игр, книг и прочего немного притупляет мое личное восприятие. [b]Субъективное:[/b] • Пара предсказуемых сюжетных ходов • Некоторые игровые условности по типу количества хвороста в руках Жестких минусов здесь нет. Игра хороша в своем конечном виде и, безусловно, вызывает интерес к продолжению. Хорошее приключение на два или три вечера. Закрыл на 100%. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3763080352 [h3]Такие дела.[/h3]

Good graphics and an interesting setting, but the predictable story, shallow characters, and repetitive gameplay loop holds it back. 6/10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBc7st73bzQ A really beautiful and emotional game set in medieval France. You play as a big sister trying to protect her little brother from both the Inquisition and literal oceans of flesh-eating rats. Gameplay-wise, it's mostly a mix of stealth and puzzle-solving using fire to keep the rats away. It can feel a bit linear and repetitive towards the end, but the amazing story and atmosphere make it completely worth it.

The game is a hauntingly beautiful experience that blends stealth, survival, and storytelling into something unforgettable. The game pulls you in immediately with its grim atmosphere—rats swarm like a living tide, and every shadow feels dangerous. Yet, amid the darkness, the bond between Amicia and her younger brother Hugo shines through, giving the journey a fragile warmth. The pacing is deliberate, sometimes slow, but that works in its favor; it lets the tension build naturally and makes each escape feel earned. The environments, from crumbling villages to plague-ridden fields, are crafted with such detail that you can almost smell the decay. What really elevates the game, though, is its emotional weight. You’re not just sneaking past guards or solving puzzles—you’re protecting a child, and that responsibility lingers long after you put the controller down. It’s not flawless; combat can feel clunky, and some mechanics repeat a little too often. But those shortcomings fade when measured against the sheer atmosphere and heart of the story. Innocence isn’t just a game—it’s a tale of survival, sacrifice, and the fragile hope that keeps people moving forward even in the darkest times.

A Plague Tale: Innocence is a great story-driven adventure with a dark atmosphere, solid stealth sections, light puzzles, and some tense action moments. It’s not a pure combat game, but the story, characters make it very worth playing.

I highly recommend A Plague Tale: Innocence. The story was excellent and kept me interested from beginning to end. I also really enjoyed the gameplay, which focuses more on sneaking past and avoiding enemies than engaging in direct combat. I especially liked the development of Amicia and Hugo. At the beginning, they are not very close, and Amicia is not used to taking care of her younger brother. As the story progresses, they learn to trust each other and become much stronger together. Their relationship develops naturally, and this emotional growth is one of the best parts of the game. The game also creates a dark and intense atmosphere that makes the entire experience more powerful. There is always a sense that something could go wrong, which kept me nervous and focused while playing. The mysterious, unsettling, and suspenseful mood fits the story perfectly. Overall, A Plague Tale: Innocence is a great choice for anyone who enjoys emotional stories, stealth-based gameplay, and dark settings. Personal rating: 9/10 =)

Overall, it turned out to be a great adventure that noticeably lacked a bit of budget and developer experience towards the end. The game features great characters, a really cool gameplay concept, beautiful locations, and wonderful (though somewhat limited in variety) music. It also boasts an original setting that often brutally and vividly showcases the horrors of war, the CYCLE OF VIOLENCE, AND THE PATH OF REVENGE (*cough-cough*). All in all, it’s a genuinely good game that just needed a bit more polish to be even more amazing. For instance, there is a clunky stealth chapter reminiscent of the MJ sections in Spider-Man, a rather dull final boss, and some cutscenes that just abruptly fade to black or feel simply undercooked in terms of animation and direction. But as you play, you really appreciate how well Asobo managed, almost on their first try, to put together a complete, awesome, and original single-player experience with a great foundation to build upon and improve. I really enjoyed it. I'll jump into the sequel a bit later, as playing them back-to-back might be a bit too much. A very solid 8/10

I'm sorry but I cannot recommend this game to anyone in their right mind. It's frustrating, it's tedious and it' clunky af. If you came here to be validated after you found the last boss to be hella frustrating and the game to be unfun and boring - yeah, same fam. The graphics are great, that's obvious, but the visuals of this game leave a lot to be desired. The set pieces are wonderful, but that's about it. The animations are just kinda straight up bad - the 3D modellers did an impeccable job, but the animation team was slacking off, so every character moves like an IKEA wooden doll. The gameplay is unfun and it is actually just subpar in general. You have four gameplay variations: 1. You slowly walk, look around and listen to the dialogue (which is also not great but we'll get back to that). That ain't really gameplay. 2. You do puzzles, which are usually one-dimensional, dull and don't make you think at all, and are usually there to just fill in the time when the devs decide that you need a break. Since your character moves as if she's a monster truck without gas sliding on ice, you spend a considerable amount of time running back and forth and stubbing your toes on the corners of the map, getting mildly frustrated. 3. You do stealth. Tbh that's the better part of the game and I wish the game really emphasized the stealth segments more. It's still a bit worse than most other stealth-focused games because of reasons (remember the monster truck on ice situation), but it's somewhat fun because stealth is somewhat of a puzzle itself. 4. You do combat. You die if anyone gets close and you die in one single hit btw. And it usually happens when you botch the 'You do stealth' part. Combat is awful in this game, since the maps are usually very tight, the guards can throw homing spears and monster-truck-ice thing. [b] The worst part about combat though is this: you have a wheel of your ammo, which is vital to navigate during combat since you need to use about 4-5 different ammo types by the end of the game. Usually such games slow time down for you to navigate this wheel and choose the right option. This game decided that it would be too easy ig, so no timestop for you, hence you are frantically using the wheel to craft and pick ammo while the enemies approach in real time. [/b] I cannot say that this feels fair or balanced or thought-out and I believe no one at the studio played their own game (or any other games with such a wheel for that matter) to even conceive the idea. I also cannot say that I died often, as the game isn't even that hard, but every time I died I was frustrated because the game felt like it hated my controller with every fiber of it's being. Well, one might say that I'm asking too much and the game is supposed to be a walking sim (kinda sorta). The plot ain't good either. I'm not spoiling it, but that was the first game in which I hated a side character with such burning passion. The game has a lot of teenager-to-teenager badly written unskippable dialogue, and I can overlook the decisions made by younger people, but I cannot excuse the stupidity: one character goes missing due to overhearing something, and all the other characters, instead of going straight to the place they were talking about when the missing character overheard them, they decide to just patrol the surroundings for a month, doing NOTHING. Stupid. I rarely actively advise against games. I believe that someone can find good where I found bad, and one man's trash is another man's treasure and all that. But Plague Tale: Innocence took more than a couple dollars on discount from me. It took my time and nerve and gave me a frustrating nothingburger in return. For that, I cannot fathom why the game has like 93% positive reviews, and I'd like to fix that.