A Plague Tale: Requiem refines and expands on the original like every good sequel should

^ Stay tuned after the announcements of our A Plague Tale: Requiem check chat for twenty real minutes of gorgeous ultra-wide gameplay at max settings on PC.

Summoning the full power of next-gen GPUs to spawn a swarm of 300,000 rats that fight their way through medieval France is, in itself, a pretty neat party trick. The fact that Asobo Studio is using it merely as the basis for a captivating and gripping tale of human ingenuity in the face of unfathomable disaster is a staggeringly impressive feat – and as if that wasn’t enough to brag about, now they’ve gone and done it. twice with A Plague Tale: Requiemthe bold and brilliant sequel to 2019’s Innocence.

The first game earned comparisons to God of War and The Last of Us when it came out, and it’s easy to see why: All of these games are essentially 20-hour escort missions that play out like a harrowing road trip over a dozen chapters. But without Sony’s money hose on hand to piss cash on your TV like a truck stop urinal, there was a feeling that Plague Tale couldn’t compete. He even got a terse nickname in “The Past of Us,” as many joked at the preview stage.

But the story of Amicia and Hugo, estranged siblings clinging to each other as the world around them collapses into a tooth-filled hell, transcends those kinds of minute comparisons. With a main cast of memorable characters, beautifully realized locations, and a seemingly endless bag of tricks of twists on the familiar childhood game of “the floor is lava,” it quickly became apparent to all that Plague Tale wasn’t a game too. but a serious job that could stand out among the Triple-A giants.

With Requiem, the force of those ideas gets the big-budget, no-strings-attached treatment it deserves, delivering a solidly worthy sequel that, while not perfect (its various systems sometimes collide more than they interact), proves that the saga Plague Tale is more than worthy of consideration against Sony’s flagship titles, and is just as compelling as the Assassin’s Creed saga when it comes to the narrow field of historical action adventure with silly fantasy twists where you punch the Pope.

While the original game was a more intimate affair (as intimate as the rat apocalypses of the Middle Ages can get, at least), the stakes-upping sequel works wonderfully as a companion piece: no less terrifying, and yet However, with a shift in the balance of power that puts the protagonists on a war footing, slightly turning the tables against the dominant enemies of the original story.

Essentially, it’s Plague Tale getting its own sequel from James Cameron. What an absolute delight.

A Plague Tale: Requiem leaves tomorrow in game pass by personal computer Y Xbox Series X|S, VaporY ps5.