O-ho. So you want a stark survival story centered around the relationship between two harrowed family members? A story set against an oppressively morbid and grotesque backdrop as the height of a miserable pandemic looms over the land, where soldiers who want to kill you lurk every possible corner, and all you have is yourself and a person you, as a growing adolescent, are still learning to love?
Hit it, Betsy.
A Plague Tale: Innocence is about an older sister (whom you control) and her younger brother trying to survive 14th century France under the shadow of both the Hundred Years' War as well as the Great Plague. Rough times!
There is an emphasis on stealth over battle, at least in the early parts(?); the two of you are not quite trained combatants or gritty rogues raised on blood money -- you're just kids. That means having to elude the threat of both the soldiers of the Inquisition and the teeming disease-carrying rats in whatever way.
A Plague Tale: Innocence Story Trailer
20 minutes of gameplay (some spoilers)
Original E3 2017 teaser
The most recent press junket for the game has been making the rounds this past few weeks, after about a year of trickling info and pre-release media attention, and has been labeled a novel and unique Hellblade-esque treatise (a thread!). Which is unfortunate (not on anybody's account) -- the cut to which it belongs being novel and unique, as it is. Because the potential for these kind of interactive templates with this breed of visual fidelity have always been there, always will be. Seeing other devs like these take those ambitions head-on give further purpose to the push, like Ico, TLOU, GoW, [fellow French dev] Quantic Dream's repertoire, Senua's Sacrifice before it, and it is great to see more such efforts emerging from the fray alongside other great games this season -- particularly in the cinematic third-person tradition. And hopefully given room to truly thrive, or at least constitute a bigger niche of a library.
It's being developed by a French dev known as Asobo Studio, mostly known for licensed Pixar adaptations, (whose games I've not played), and to suddenly transition to such a stark narrative shift is a nigh-ticklish twist. I hope it's the start of a direction that cultivates similarly rooted works. In the end I don't know if this game will be able to go the full mile in its writing, level design, or the full package, but that something like this exists and looks this promising instills hope! So here's to hoping it has a strong skeleton. Representing a transformative slice of French history through the lens of a tense, gory, short and sweet [edit: scratch that, alleged to be ten to fifteen hours(?)] survival adventure can go straight to the bowels -- literally.
Hit it, Betsy.
A Plague Tale: Innocence is about an older sister (whom you control) and her younger brother trying to survive 14th century France under the shadow of both the Hundred Years' War as well as the Great Plague. Rough times!
There is an emphasis on stealth over battle, at least in the early parts(?); the two of you are not quite trained combatants or gritty rogues raised on blood money -- you're just kids. That means having to elude the threat of both the soldiers of the Inquisition and the teeming disease-carrying rats in whatever way.
A Plague Tale: Innocence Story Trailer
20 minutes of gameplay (some spoilers)
Original E3 2017 teaser
The most recent press junket for the game has been making the rounds this past few weeks, after about a year of trickling info and pre-release media attention, and has been labeled a novel and unique Hellblade-esque treatise (a thread!). Which is unfortunate (not on anybody's account) -- the cut to which it belongs being novel and unique, as it is. Because the potential for these kind of interactive templates with this breed of visual fidelity have always been there, always will be. Seeing other devs like these take those ambitions head-on give further purpose to the push, like Ico, TLOU, GoW, [fellow French dev] Quantic Dream's repertoire, Senua's Sacrifice before it, and it is great to see more such efforts emerging from the fray alongside other great games this season -- particularly in the cinematic third-person tradition. And hopefully given room to truly thrive, or at least constitute a bigger niche of a library.
It's being developed by a French dev known as Asobo Studio, mostly known for licensed Pixar adaptations, (whose games I've not played), and to suddenly transition to such a stark narrative shift is a nigh-ticklish twist. I hope it's the start of a direction that cultivates similarly rooted works. In the end I don't know if this game will be able to go the full mile in its writing, level design, or the full package, but that something like this exists and looks this promising instills hope! So here's to hoping it has a strong skeleton. Representing a transformative slice of French history through the lens of a tense, gory, short and sweet [edit: scratch that, alleged to be ten to fifteen hours(?)] survival adventure can go straight to the bowels -- literally.
Last edited:
