Welcome to this spoiler-free review of Plague Tale: Requiem. Note that while this review contains no spoilers for Requiem itself, it references heavy spoilers for the first game, Plague Tale: Innocence. If you haven’t played it yet, I highly recommend doing so.
Requiem picks up several months after Innocence concludes. You control Amicia, the protagonist, alongside her younger brother Hugo, who carries the Macula disease. They travel with their mother Beatrice, an experienced alchemist, and Lucas, an alchemist apprentice who’s become like family. Together, they journey toward the Alchemist Order, hoping to find a cure for Hugo’s condition.
After the first game’s chaos and destruction, the family briefly enjoys peace—but that doesn’t last. Two primary conflicts emerge: the Macula itself, which drives rat plagues wherever Hugo goes, and the political upheaval this causes across regions they visit. When they meet the Alchemist Order in their first destination, the cure proves far more damaging than expected. The more Hugo suffers emotionally or physically then the stronger the Macula becomes and the more rats appear. I won’t elaborate further to preserve the story-driven experience.
What makes this game exceptional is how the characters remain true to their previous arcs. Amicia, for instance, visibly struggles with severe PTSD. She breaks down when alone, cries frequently, and lets anger overwhelm her—remarkably human responses. Rather than becoming a detached killer who forgot everything, she shows genuine emotional depth, something rarely explored in video games.
However, a few nuances stand out. Beatrice’s appearance is off-putting because her facial features look completely different from the first game, making her feel like a different person entirely. Lucas also presents an issue: he has a new voice actor, and while some attribute the deeper voice to puberty (Lucas’s character is at that age), it sounds like he aged ten years rather than six months. The voice change feels too extreme and disconnected from the original performance.
The controls have shifted noticeably. I played the Plague Tale games back-to-back, the first game felt slower and sluggish to mimic human movement, while Requiem is faster with tighter turns. The game leans slightly more toward action, reflecting Amicia’s increased combat skills from her first-game experiences. This takes adjustment but isn’t necessarily negative. You still rely on stealth for the most part, timing enemy patrols, and alchemy, though action receives more emphasis.
Unlimited rocks are available this time, though they’re weaker than expected. The crossbow offers more power but with severely limited ammo. Progression still involves upgrading Amicia’s fighting style, ammunition capacity, alchemy, and inventory through earned points. Interestingly, the game automatically adjusts a passive skill tree based on your playstyle—violent approaches naturally upgrade combat skills while stealthy play boosts subtle abilities. You can’t manually invest in this tree, and it’s minor enough not to affect gameplay, but it’s a unique touch. Direct point investments into weapon efficiency and ammo capacity remain fully under your control like the first game.
For the most part, maps remain linear like the first game, following a set path. A few areas open up with large spaces you can explore, but roughly 90% of the game sticks to that linear structure. There’s increased emphasis on antagonists and enemies introduced much earlier, along with well-designed side characters with distinct personalities that make you question whether they’re friend or foe. This early introduction builds attachment faster than the first game, which matters since Requiem is longer and gives you more time to develop feelings toward these characters.
Sound design is exceptional. The composing is phenomenal and top-notch, heightening the game’s thrill depending on what’s happening. What’s particularly impressive is how alive certain areas feel. Asobo Studio, despite having only about 300 staff members (making this borderline indie rather than AAA) creates vibrant festival and market scenes filled with NPCs doing their own thing. Sound effects of vendors yelling “Fish for sale, potatoes for sale” make these spaces genuinely immersive. It’s disappointing that most AAA games don’t prioritise this level of detail, focusing instead on pumping out games with minimal immersion. Recent games like Hitman World of Assassination and Cyberpunk 2077 are exceptions, actually using crowd immersion as part of their design.
The game does suffer from occasional bugs, though they’re rare. In roughly 17 hours of gameplay, I encountered maybe three or four instances where my companion walked into rats or fire, burning or getting eaten due to poor AI moments. When this happens, you’re forced to restart from the checkpoint since they shouldn’t die at that point. It’s not perfect, but these glitches are infrequent enough not to significantly ruin from the experience.
I encountered a specific bug with Amicia’s alchemy—I created it and threw it, but it wouldn’t activate. This alchemy attracts rats to a specific spot, clearing a path for you to run through, just like in the first game. The issue occurred twice during my 17-hour playthrough on PlayStation 5, though others reported similar bugs on PC. The fix is simply restarting from your checkpoint, which fortunately are generous, but it’s still frustrating when it happens.
Human enemies are tougher in this game. While you get more weapon variety like unlimited rocks and crossbows, the most powerful weapons have severely limited ammunition and slow reload times, forcing you to use them sparingly as last resorts.
The rat sequences, however, are absolutely nuts. The first game had maybe a thousand rats at a time; Requiem features tens of thousands, sometimes reaching ten thousand or more depending on the environment. Entire areas flood with rats in staggering numbers. What’s astonishing is that on PlayStation 5, the frame rate never dropped despite this insane rat count. I suspect the studio lowered graphics detail slightly (I noticed a slight degrade in graphics from the first game but nothing bad) to accommodate the sheer volume of rats on screen, which is an incredible technical achievement.
The rat sequences go way over the top and lean more science fiction than the first game, but that’s integral to the story.
Without spoiling anything, the narrative is just as good as, if not better than, Innocence. Things escalate considerably, but playing through the entire game makes you appreciate why. Requiem is far more disturbing than the first game. Innocence already surpassed Game of Thrones in gore and cold-hardheartedness, but Requiem takes it further. Often it’s not just the gore itself—it’s how dead bodies are presented and how despicable things become. It’s genuinely disturbing and not for the faint of heart. If you barely stomached Innocence, skip this one. But if you can handle it, it’s worth experiencing just to see how dark it gets.
What’s remarkable is the contrast. Amidst all this darkness are quiet moments where Amicia and Hugo are just kids—a teenager and a child having innocent interactions. These moments are rare in sequels that maintain or exceed the quality of their predecessors, yet this game absolutely delivers on both fronts. If you enjoyed the first game, definitely play this. You won’t regret it.
