Unlike most franchises, how a third game Plague Tale installment could look is fully up in the air, much less whether or not a threequel could even feasibly be on the table. A Plague Tale: Requiem ends definitively for Hugo de Rune whereas an abrupt post-credits stinger makes it far more ambiguous whether Amicia de Rune’s chapter has ended also. A Plague Tale isn’t in need of another game to stretch its story out further than it’s warranted, but it’d definitely be exciting to see what a third entry could provide the series regarding old and new iterations of gameplay in the stealth-horror genre.
For better or for worse, A Plague Tale changed quite a bit between Innocence and Requiem. Innocence leaned almost exclusively on stealth and, while that could be seen as repetitive or monotonous to anyone who doesn’t particularly enjoy stealth, it arguably did so in ways that kept it sustained and engaging throughout. Stealth is abundant in Requiem, too, but the sequel also debuted an emphasis on aggressive combat. This emphasis also led to a skill tree in Requiem that Innocence didn’t have, and a third Plague Tale game needs to seriously reconsider how it ties into its level designs on a fundamental level or bin it wholesale.
A Plague Tale: Requiem’s Skill Tree is Inorganic and Ironic
How Requiem’s skill tree works is unconventional and pertains to three branches: Prudence, Aggressive, and Opportunism. But instead of spending skill points or XP toward each branch’s unlockable passive abilities, each branch is progressed when its particular playstyle is employed in gameplay; for example, not alerting or attacking enemies progresses Prudence while exploiting the environment and various interactions progresses Opportunism, unlocking new skills gradually as their respective playstyles are embraced.
This would have been perfectly valid if players always had complete liberty and fairness in how any encounter could be engaged, but that is rarely true in Requiem. Certain sequences in the game impose a particular playstyle and therefore a skill tree branch’s progression throughout the game rarely seems earned or natural on the player’s behalf but rather mandated by what a scripted encounter demands.
Some sections forbid players from drawing Amicia’s sling, for instance, while others forbid players from being detected, and thus determine what playstyle players must adopt regardless of what they prefer or what skill tree branch they hope to progress.
A Plague Tale: Requiem Condemns Aggression and Enforces It in the Same Breath
Arnaud’s section is remarkably in favor of the Aggressive branch because he can take on any individual enemy and remove that obstacle from players’ paths with no effort, making it far more efficient to exploit him as an overpowered NPC. Arnaud struggles when facing more than one soldier at a time, requiring the player’s intervention to prevent him from dying, but he’s unstoppable in a one-on-one with players capable of dependably siccing Arnaud on anyone in Amicia and Hugo’s path—once that finally unlocks as an NPC interaction option, at least.
Plus, while Amicia never hears the end of her fully necessary violent actions somehow being morally questionable, sending Arnaud to do her and Hugo’s dirty work is never frowned upon.
Either way, a third game should avoid implementing a skill tree with players’ actions determining which abilities are unlocked if it contains more scripted scenarios than encounters that players can tackle in whichever way they desire. There’s no telling what a third game could look like and it may not want to harp on the same tropes of grief and rage in the way it did with Innocence and Requiem, anyway, so a reevaluation of its approach to skill trees or progression in general would be exciting to see.
A Plague Tale: Requiem
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 83 /100 Critics Rec: 88%
- Released
- October 18, 2022
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ due to Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Asobo Studio
- Publisher(s)
- Focus Entertainment
- Engine
- Proprietary Engine
- Franchise
- A Plague Tale
WHERE TO PLAY
- Platform(s)
- PC, Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- Genre(s)
- Action-Adventure, Stealth
- How Long To Beat
- 17 Hours
- X|S Optimized
- Yes
- File Size Xbox Series
- 53 GB (November 2023)
