A Plague Tale: Innocence is a stark contrast to Asobo Studio’s prior work, which includes titles based on family-friendly movies such as WALL-E, Toy Story, or Garfield. Even contemporary games could not be more different. Today, Asobo Studio is best known for the A Plague Tale games and Microsoft Flight Simulator. What sets A Plague Tale: Innocence apart from the rest of the lineup is its extremely dark and gritty medieval fantasy setting. The game does not hold back on heartbreaking moments and gory visuals. But it is not a horror game at heart. A Plague Tale: Innocence is a linear, story-driven adventure with a focus on stealth and occasional combat. It borrows elements from survival horror titles, such as exploring the world for supplies to aid in your journey. The major difference is that resources are plenty enough to get you through all situations. If a puzzle requires a certain amount of crafting materials, you can generally find them near its location. This design choice makes the game very approachable, and the primary reward for exploration is a healthy surplus of resources for lavish use and upgrading the main character’s gear.

A Plague Tale: Innocence’s game design is a puzzle at its core. But it does not present itself as a puzzler. Your journey through the 17 chapters confronts you with carefully crafted areas populated with enemies of varying types. Depending on the enemy and the gear you have unlocked, you can take out your foe or, most of the time, distract them to sneak past. After all, the main protagonist is a fifteen-year-old girl usually accompanied by even younger children, her five-year-old brother in particular. One hit instantly spells game over. A slow and methodical approach is typically the key. When you combine the dark story and atmosphere, the game creates a suspense-packed gameplay experience.

For the most part, A Plague Tale: Innocence is not very difficult. Because of its linear structure and limited size, the solution to crossing an area is usually not difficult to deduce. Only in the later chapters does the number of enemies in a particular location provide a challenge. Until then, A Plague Tale: Innocence is more about engrossing you in its story, world, and characters. The successor, A Plague Tale: Requiem changes that and unleashes you into larger, much more challenging places. But that does not mean that A Plague Tale: Innocence is a walking simulator. There is enough gameplay here to make it a proper and exciting game. Asobo Studio created a very focused adventure without unnecessary fluff and monetization crap.

(Stay away from the Coats of Arms DLC, though. From what I saw, this is a pack of “outfits” that merely change the color of the base outfit, which you’ll never see again after the second or third chapter.)

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