It’s 1348, and hordes of disease-ridden rats have completely demolished your homeland. This devastating tragedy is strangely connected to a horrible sickness your five-year-old brother is dying from. As he passes through the thresholds of his illness, he is slowly connecting to the rats giving him the ability to control them. Will you be able to protect your little brother and save him from his sickness or fall to the bite of rats, fire, or blades?

     I would like to say that I started Plague Tale Requiem completely ignorant of the events from the first game. Despite this, I was able to have an enriching experience even without knowing the entire lore from the previous game. The things I enjoyed most were the stealth gameplay, combat mechanics, and some details that added to the immersion.

     With the game releases of 2022, none of them had a good stealth option like Plague Tale. Through the first six chapters, the game teaches the player many ways to sneak past their enemies by either making noise to distract the enemy or by creating visual distractions to obscure their vision. There are many areas in the game where the player must solely rely on their stealth skills. I find these parts of the game more difficult since I’m an aggressive player and like to take down as many threats as I can, but this game taught me that sometimes it is better to sail pass and avoid conflict.

     Moving on to the combat aspects of the game, since the player is a 15-year-old girl living in the 13th century, she is limited to only a few forms of fighting. The only methods are a sling, a crossbow that the player gets later on in the game, blades that break after their use, alchemy, and rats, three of these things the player is able to upgrade with a workbench found around areas throughout the game. With the sling, the player is only able to kill enemies that aren’t wearing protection, but by combining the sling with alchemy, the player is able to throw many elements at their enemies and their surroundings. An example is if a threat is standing in tall dry grass, the player can use their sling to throw fire at the grass and light them ablaze. The crossbow can only attack lightly covered enemies, heavily armored enemies cannot be penetrated by the bolts but can be distracted by striking the back of their armor to make it fall off, allowing the player to take them out. I’ve never ever enjoyed a game that hasn’t let me fight back, but the limitations make sense for the storyline which I  appreciate. 

      Now I want to speak on some other factors that made “Plague Tale: Requiem” more immersive, that being the soundtrack and voice acting. “Plague Tale: Requiem” has one of my favorite soundtracks. They nailed the medieval time period music perfectly. Each track fits the scene or area of the game perfectly. It matches exactly to the mood, which really puts me in the game and makes me think about if I was in this scenario and if I could survive. The voice acting in “Plague Tale: Requiem” is amazing. I can really feel the emotions, like during the stealth portions of the game, the main character, Amicia, must speak in hushed whispers. I think it really gives Plague Tale its horror aspect, the player can really hear the fear in the character’s voice during high-stakes scenarios. Overall I really enjoyed this game, it has to be one of my favorite games I’ve played this year. I suggest this game for people who love beautiful world design, extreme stealth, a gorgeous fleshed-out story, and rats.