Microsoft showed a new trailer for A Plague Tale: Requiem during the Games Showcase today, giving us another rare look at gameplay in the upcoming sequel, due sometime this year on Xbox Consoles, PC and Game Pass at launch. It’s also coming to PS5 but obviously Microsoft glossed over that bit.
The thing that really stuck out to me, a fan of the first game, was stabbing. Amicia, the returning older sister of brother Hugo, and our hero, can now approach enemies from the back and stealth-kill them, reaching over and stabbing them multiple times in the neck - the kind of gruesome move we’ve seen many times in other stealth combat games. Except A Plague Tale, the first game, wasn’t really a stealth combat game - it was more about running away and hiding and being smart. That’s what made it stand out.
Amicia also packs a crossbow in the sequel, which she uses, and she can garrotte people with some chord. All she had in the first game was a slingshot, which wasn’t entirely capable of one-shot kills. It was more of a utility/distraction tool.
All the same, Amicia did go through a lot in A Plague Tale, and now she’s older, so it follows that she might have learnt how to kill, especially if she’s still protecting her gifted younger brother Hugo from the threats of the world.
Still, the sequel is as gorgeous as I hoped it would be - the first game being the stunner it is - and all of the gruesome weight of the plague-ridden Medieval world, and supernatural underpinnings, appear to have returned. And, of course, rats - lots of rats.
