The Perfect Pacing of ‘A Plague Tale: Innocence’
A Plague Tale: Innocence is a harrowing tale of familial love in the face of unimaginable and overwhelming tragedy. It is a story of life and death, of love and loss, of secrets and sacrifice. Capable of claustrophobia and calm, A Plague Tale: Innocence is the first game since The Last of Us where I felt as deep a connection to a companion character that I nurtured over the course of the narrative arc. The pacing as much as character development helped push this story from great to unforgettable.
Every moment of A Plague Tale: Innocence pushes the plot forward and reinforces its themes through character interactions. The game features two primary protagonists, Amicia and Hugo of the de Rune family. The game quickly implies that this family is wealthy and has some degree of power and virtue, but quickly rends those qualities into turmoil and chaos. The story thus focuses on the loss of family, the building of vagrant friendships, and an uncannily supernatural struggle against frightening and deadly rats. Thrust these hostile conditions against an overarching conspiratorial power struggle on behalf of the Inquisition – a power-hungry religious cult given political and military power – and the stage is set for the plague to take its toll.
The shocking thing about A Plague Tale: Innocence is the fact that it was made by such a remarkably small group of developers at Asobo Studio. This was the first exclusively story-driven single player game that this studio has produced, which floored me to learn. Not to mention, in what has been termed the “AA” sphere of game development, Plague Tale drops some of the most technically impressive and narratively compelling moments in all the games that 2019 had to offer. Considering the relative disadvantage of this game in terms of budget and staff size when compared to a Sony-funded veteran juggernaut like Naughty Dog, Plague Tale punched up, rendering itself a genuine competitor for compelling narrative in linear game design.
There are fewer writers in A Plague Tale: Innocence than there are chapters, and yet one could easily mistake the benchmark-setting dialogue – both in terms of writing and delivery – to have come from a team of several dozen more. The game clearly lays out its key characters, puts them in meaningful relationships with clear motivations, and then lets go of control for the player to execute the obvious – or at least intuitive – objectives to progress the story. Once or twice, for example, Hugo will stumble over a word which reminds the player that, despite the grim circumstances, there is still some childhood mirth to be found within the game. On the other hand, sometimes Amicia will break emotionally and scream out something she doesn’t mean – a veritable sign of a 15 year old undergoing a more intense stress than most adults will ever experience. These characters are not perfect but they are likably human.
In terms of pacing, the game zips from a heartwarming introduction with Amicia’s father teaching her how to slingshot objects out of trees to having her kill her first man. This volte face doesn’t jar against the character, the world, or the narrative, however. Amicia genuinely works her way up from being apprenticed by her father in an innocent forest setting to actively seeking to kill someone who has threatened Hugo’s life.
Taking a bird’s eye view at the game’s seventeen chapters, Plague Tale never wastes a breath of its player’s time. Chapter one, “The De Rune Legacy,” culminates in tragedy that spirals the rest of the plot forward. By chapter four, Amicia and Hugo have made substantial progress towards fulfilling their mother’s last wish before they fled: to find the alchemist who was working on a cure for Hugo’s “disease” known as the Macula. The story continues at a gallop through a myriad of light puzzling, intense stealth encounters, and occasionally cornering combat. Within about a dozen hours, the credits are rolling.
The overall story of A Plague Tale: Innocence takes place within the scope of a few months at most, beginning in November of 1348, and slightly shifting forward in time to accelerate the narrative. As a result, the story never lingers, and the degree to which progress is made – in terms of the escape of Hugo and Amicia from the Inquisition, as well as their quest to find Hugo a cure, and Hugo’s insatiable desire to find and free their mother – continues to quicken as the narrative and characters develop.
Each chapter in Plague Tale pushes the plot forward. There are no side quests, no frivolous missions, no mini-games, just the world and the story the game wants to tell. Instead of following the trend of adding more systems into games, Plague Tale simplifies most of its mechanics into a small handful of options within puzzling and stealth scenarios. Instead of blowing up its world with hidden paths, backtracking, or open world exploration, Plague Tale tightly wraps its player within confines that feel as trapping as the rats which surround Amicia and Hugo. The game wants to push its player through specific environmental encounters, and the game benefits greatly from that decision to commit to linearity.
The cast of characters in Plague Tale are also extremely well fleshed out considering the game’s limited runtime. From the moment Amicia and Hugo flee their home in the first chapter, they are on the move towards other characters. From Beatrice’s words they flee towards Laurentius, who they cannot find. Instead, they encounter an old woman who sends them to Father Thomas, who guides them towards the crypts. These crypts help Amicia and Hugo escape, but they come at the price of Father Thomas’ life – and the toll it takes on these children is palpably obvious. But it leads to meeting Lucas, who accompanies them throughout the rest of the story. Even so, the relationships bring tragedy into Amicia and Hugo’s lives, particularly when losing someone they’d recently grown close to.
In the few short hours that Plague Tale tells its story, Amicia visibly ages and matures. Her words change, her voice changes, and her eyes change. Gone is the innocent girl who jealously resented her mother for ignoring her and spending her doting hours caring for the sick Hugo. Gone was the girl who hesitated in the introduction to sling a rock at a boar. Gone was the girl who was able to forgive and forget others as long as Hugo was safe. This game escalates Amicia’s psychology throughout the entire experience, and it is a genuine question whether this is a tale of protection or revenge by the end.
And there might also be the question of whether Hugo matures throughout the game. Towards the end, as the Macula intensifies, and the “First Threshold” for his tainted blood approaches, there are moments where Hugo gains intense powers and agency over others characters. But by the end, it seems he remains as much a kid as he was at the beginning, regardless of the trials he went through. In reality, most moments of distress in the game do not come from Hugo himself, but rather Amicia fretting about Hugo’s safety. In many cases, such as the heartbreaking river scene in the beginning where Hugo laments mother admonishing him for getting wet – when it is evident to Amicia that their mother is dead – is heartbreaking. Hugo is not distressed in this scene, but we and Amicia are, and therefore it’s easy to forget that so much of what plagues us – both Amicia and the player – is oblivious to Hugo.
A Plague Tale: Innocence was a sleeper hit for me, and for such a below-the-radar game to have slapped me in such a memorable way was a reminder that small games can be as beautiful, touching, innovating, compelling, and well-written as any high budget “AAA” game. I will never forget the game’s main characters, nor the cast of valiant heroes who helped Amicia and Hugo along, sacrificing everything to achieve their quest. I credit much of my love for this game to the rate at which it told its story. By keeping every single moment important and urgent, I felt like I never wanted Plague Tale to end – even though I was desperate for Amicia and Hugo to be free of their plight at last.
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