A Plague Tale: Innocence

Linear story-driven adventure where our role is to escort a special child everyone is looking for in a post-apocalyptic world. Does it ring any bells?

Despite being developed by a small studio, "A Plague Tale: Innocence" delivers triple-A level graphics and quality art direction. Unfortunately, the plot and characters suffer from mediocre and derivative writing, but the plague-ridden late medieval setting has been recreated with an impressive level of detail. While the locations were always an extreme pleasure to look at, NPC models are limited and tend to be recycled a lot throughout the game. Facial animations also felt like they were at least a generation old, spoiling the magic during dialogues and cutscenes.

The gameplay mechanics do not differ from any other stealth/survival third-person adventure, but at the same time offer a rather refreshing take on environmental puzzles as you will be asked to manipulate light and darkness to make your way through menacing hordes of rats. Combat against human enemies is a little clunkier and, especially at the beginning, a little tedious. Throwing objects to distract enemies, hiding behind crates, and shooting with a sling sounds boring as hell, but new mechanics are gradually introduced thanks to the combination of alchemic substances that have various effects on the enemies and the environments.

Overall, the impression is that of a mediocre game that could have offered a lot more with a bigger budget.