A Plague Tale: Innocence is one of my favourite finds in recent years thanks to Game Pass.

I loved the way Asobo built up that relationship between Amicia and Hugo over time, the way they came to trust each other, learn about one another.

But I also loved how the game handled the killing of enemies. It felt weighted, meaningful, relevant to the story. Amicia is just a young woman after all, fighting an entire Inquisition with just a sling and rocks. She shouldn’t be able to take on the world like you can in most other games and she couldn’t.

Requiem feels different. Requiem puts the honus on the player to really determine who Amicia is, what she’s capable of, and find ways out of situations, whatever the cost.

And whichever route you decide to favor, so you earn passive skills over time. If you’re stealthy and prudent, for instance, you’ll eventually have lighter footsteps and be able to throw items further.

If you go in with knives, crossbows and slings blazing, though, you can strangle enemies quicker and reload your weapons faster. There’s even a path for the opportunistic if you make use of alchemy so you can gather more pieces to craft and compile them more quickly.

It’s just one of many smart evolutions from Innocence. The game still plays like a linear adventure, moving from scene to scene, chapter to chapter, with Souvenirs and Collection pieces to find inbetween, but there’s more scope to explore now and crafting has a bigger focus with workbenches dotted around to improve your gear.

There’s also changes to alchemy with the introduction of Tar which spreads fire and Odoris which attracts rats to another location for a short period. Amicia also gets access to a crossbow which can be tweaked and refined in a number of ways.

The game goes even further still, but most adjustments are chapter-specific and, as such, border ever so slightly in the spoiler territory so we’ll keep away from that. But the result is a slightly less complex, more polished experience that stays fresh throughout.

So it is ultimately much more of Innocence, then, but with a bigger budget, longer campaign, and a full orchestral choir accompanying its beautiful score. No bad thing. Well, except if you don’t like rats.

What Requiem does so well, though, is balancing its dark, grim, stomach-twisting moments with some of the most stunning, beautiful scenes I’ve witnessed on my 4K TV.

This is an incredibly rich, vibrant, jaw-droppingly beautiful game that also has some of the murkiest, most grim and grotesque sights I’ve seen in a game for a while. And I’ve played Agony.

The thing with Requiem is that it doesn’t just put these moments in the game to try and shock you, it all has a purpose. It’s a game that wants you to stop and marvel at its scenery in one moment, then swiftly remind you of the horrors of a plague-ridden 14th Century. The way it manages to seamlessly integrate it into the narrative is wonderfully done, truly. It’s a 4K tour-de-force.

Where the game does suffer a bit is padding. The story is around double the size of the original Plague Tale and while it’s a good thing to see the story expand and spend more time with its characters, the initial few chapters are slow going and there’s definitely more than one false ending.

This is also where the game’s big budget occasionally works against it as it felt like the developers wanted to throw you into one big sequence after another in a bid to try and top themselves from the chapter before. Outside of the solid middle portion, what actually ended up happening was me getting a bit fatigued around the fringes, wanting the story to move along.

Innocence, for me, worked so well because its chapters were short, sharp, and succinct. It added to the drama, it maintained the pacing better, and it made the game un-put-downable. Requiem does follow in a similar way, but I definitely felt the story ventured aimlessly at times and I was forcing myself to stick with it rather than the game naturally carrying me to its conclusion.

But yes, there are more big-budget sequences to behold and let’s just say rat animations have come further. The amount on a screen at any one time is horrifying, even if the effect is incredibly impressive. And rats definitely have a bigger part to play. So if the idea of rat tornados, rat avalanches and rats tearing buildings asunder sounds like your idea of hell then this still isn’t the game for you. Sorry.

At the heart of the story remains Hugo and Amicia, though. This is a direct follow-on and the effects of Innocence, while slightly muted initially, are still very much felt in Requiem. The brother and sister are much closer now, whereas at the beginning of Innocence Amicia was closer with the family dog.

The opening portion is a wonderful reminder of how far they’ve come. From barely knowing each other at the start of Innocence, to them playing hide and seek, chasing one another and playing war in the water together. Their relationship is heart-warming, their exchanges are constantly touching and frankly, where conversation has recently turned to how poorly compensated voice actors are, you can’t imagine the story feeling half as interesting and impactful if not for such wonderful performances.

So, of course, when disaster strikes and the two are once again thrust into danger, you’re swiftly reminded that the stakes are still very high, danger is around every corner and no matter where they go, they cannot outrun that threat.

And that’s one of the other big changes this time around. Your playable characters do alternate among the returning and new cast in Requiem. Familiar faces like Lucas and Beatrice are back again for the sequel, but we’re also introduced to enigmatic cast additions like Arnaud and Sofia who help in their own unique ways.

Ultimately, much of the game plays the same way. You’re still trying to find creative ways to get around rats, sticking to the light, lighting fires, walking with torches, but also using the environment and your alchemy to help you get through armed-to-the-teeth gaurds.

It’s the story that ultimately drives the game, though, and while it does take a while to get going, the stakes are made clear early on and you’re soon hooked in.

That said, there’s plenty of laughs to find, many hidden and off the beaten track, which makes them all the more wonderful to stumble upon. But you know as soon as those laughs and beautiful moments are over, the real threat remains ever-present.

The only other main issues I had, padding aside, is a minor UI gripe when restarting checkpoints and how easy it was to reset the whole scenario through a quick finger slip. There were also a few graphical hitches I encountered and some environmental and sequence repetition did lend itself to slight tedium.

Yet, A Plague Tale: Requiem does everything a sequel needs to do. Ups the ante, increases the budget, expands the world, and wraps it up in a stunning 4K bow with a score that haunts and sends chills to the bone. It’s hard to ask for more.

Verdict

A Plague Tale: Requiem took me on a journey I won’t soon forget. I loved its gameplay evolutions over its predecessor and much like Innocence, I fell in love with its characters, laughed and smiled gleefully at their exchanges, all while bearing my teeth and holding my breath through some of its chapters. While the story pacing is slightly off and stretches on longer than it needs, this is a beautiful, compelling and enriching game with a budget to provide some truly epic, jaw-dropping moments.

Pros

+ Absolutely gorgeous 4K visuals
+ Incredible voice acting performances and beautiful musical score
+ Smart gameplay evolutions over Innocence
+ A well-told story with interesting new characters and revealing traits about familiar ones