A Plague Tale: Requiem – Everything You Need to Know About Hugo and Amicia’s Return

A Plague Tale: Requiem is the direct sequel to 2019’s breakout hit A Plague Tale: Innocence, which garnered widespread acclaim for French developer Asobo Studio, also responsible for the equally acclaimed Microsoft Flight Simulator.

The game was announced during Microsoft’s E3 2021 press conference.

Pricing, platforms, release date

A Plague Tale: Requiem can already be pre-ordered for a price of $49.99 on PC and $59.99 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S|X; Switch pre-orders are not yet available.

Pre-orders on all platforms include the Protector’s Pack DLC:

• Red Damsel Crossbow Skin
• 13 Cosmetics for Amicia
• Bonus crafting materials

A Plague Tale: Requiem will be released on October 18th for PC (Steam), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S|X, and Nintendo Switch (via cloud). The game will be available on day one for Game Pass subscribers.

Setting

Just like A Plague Tale: Innocence, its sequel is set in the 14th century’s medieval France. The developers have ensured the setting’s authenticity by working with Roxane Chilà, a doctor in medieval history from the local Bordeaux-Montaigne university.

The story will begin roughly six months after the events witnessed in the first game, at the beginning of Summer. The De Rune sibling protagonists Hugo and Amicia, accompanied by Hugo and Amicia’s mother, Beatrice, and their friend Lucas, a young alchemist, set off from Aquitaine to Provence intending to find a cure for Hugo’s blood disease (which allows him to control rat swarms). The disease is dormant at the start of the game but suddenly manifests again in Hugo alongside recurrent dreams of a mysterious island in the South.

This change of location was also chosen by Asobo to create a stark contrast between the tragic events of the plot and the lush, vibrant places found in Southern France.

Gameplay Mechanics

Genre-wise, A Plague Tale: Requiem can be easily classified as a third-person action/adventure game. In this sequel, Amicia, having become more experienced due to the events from Innocence, will be far more resourceful. Players can now freely decide whether to strike from the shadows or openly face foes such as French Inquisition soldiers because Amicia will not die after suffering a single hit this time around unless you’ve turned on the Hard mode difficulty. Additionally, she can return to stealth after being discovered, which should make for a smoother experience.

Amicia carries a new crossbow weapon that can even deal with armored enemies, though bolt ammunition will be relatively scarce. The developers also added the Tar material, which increases the radius of burning fire (useful for puzzles) and can also ignite enemies when you throw the flammable Ignifer mixture. Crossbow bolts, rocks (thrown with the sling and now infinite in number), and throwing pots can be tweaked with alchemical mixtures to create a total of over 20 combinations.

For his part, Hugo also finds his rat powers enhanced, as players will now be able to directly control the hordes. A new Echo ability lets him outline enemies through walls, as we’ve seen in many other games before.

From a technological standpoint, Asobo Studio revealed that A Plague Tale: Requiem features hordes of hundreds of thousands of rats, up from the roughly five thousand that could be displayed in the previous title. Partly to accommodate all these rats, the sequel’s levels are said to be much larger, which should allow for increased tactical options during combat and improved exploration.

PC Features

NVIDIA confirmed that A Plague Tale: Requiem will include support for RTX technologies like ray tracing and NVIDIA DLSS.

PC requirements haven’t been revealed yet, but we will update this page once they are publicly available.

Trailers

The world premiere reveal trailer for A Plague Tale: Requiem dropped at E3 2021.

The gameplay reveal trailer was released in December 2021 at The Game Awards.

Another trailer was released for the Xbox & Bethesda E3 2022 Showcase.

Last but not least, we got the gameplay overview trailer in the second half of August.