NOT WOKE SHOWS: A Plague Tale: Innocence

Lila Marsh

+8 clout

Sep 12, 2026

Played the whole damn thing in a couple of long nights and my shoulders still hold the tension. A Plague Tale: Innocence looks like someone spilled ink and candle wax across a medieval painting and then let it breathe. The mud sticks to Amicia's dress in a way that makes you want to reach into the screen and shake it out. Her cloak is practical, torn at the hem by the third hour, and Hugo's little tunic always looks one sneeze away from falling apart. That attention is better than most AAA costume budgets. The rats are the real set decoration, though. Black rivers of them, shifting like living oil. You hear the skitter first, then the squeal, and your hands tighten on the controller before you even see the swarm. Music does half the work. Strings and low drums during those chase stretches, the kind that make your pulse jump like you're the one running. Rodric shows up later with that big solid presence and a voice that doesn't waste syllables, and suddenly the silence between notes has company. Gameplay is almost entirely hide-and-slingshot. No power fantasy here. You are a girl with a rock pouch and a scared little brother, and the game never lets you forget it. Guards catch you and it's instant dead. No thrashing, no lucky scramble, just a short animation of you standing there like a deer while steel finds you. Infuriating the first dozen times. Then you start treating every bush and shadow like gospel. Switching tools mid-panic is clumsy; the menus feel one button too deep when someone's already yelling. Puzzles stay simple, more environmental busywork than brain burners. Light a torch, toss a rock, wait for the rats to shift. After a while it settles into a rhythm that either soothes or bores you depending on how much coffee you had. I liked the slow burn more than I expected. Early chapters drag their feet, lots of quiet walking and whispered "stay close," but then the journey grabs the wheel and the scenery starts earning its keep. Snow, ruins, half-burned villages. You feel the cold through the screen. Characters land unevenly. Amicia hardens in ways that feel earned by the body count around her, though the script sometimes telegraphs the next emotional beat a little early. Hugo is a kid who asks too many questions and somehow never becomes annoying. Side people stick better than they should. One big quiet man in particular ends up carrying more heart than the main pair some nights. The story itself leans on familiar beats—family, loss, monsters both human and furred—but the historical wrapper keeps it from feeling like pure copy-paste. Black Death France looks correctly miserable. Fires, empty streets, the constant sense that the next door could hold plague or worse. No lectures, just the weight of the place. I finished it and immediately thought about the sequel people keep mentioning. That usually means something worked. The dog thing still stings, by the way. Nobody warned me properly. Combat never opens up the way action fans want, so if you came looking to cleave through knights you will bounce off hard. Stealth purists and story junkies will stay. The OST alone is worth the headphones. Platinum run took me longer than it should have because I kept stopping to stare at a ruined monastery under rain. A little mean take: the game knows it's pretty and occasionally coasts on that. Some chapters feel padded with another rat tunnel just to stretch the runtime. Still, the hours vanish. I did not hate the simple puzzles once I stopped expecting Portal. I just wanted one more moment where Amicia could actually fight back instead of freezing. Petty complaint from someone who survived the swarm sections by pure nerves. Clothes get dirtier. Voices get quieter. Rats never stop. You play as a sister who would rather throw stones than speeches, and that keeps it grounded when other games would start monologuing about destiny. I shut it down around 2 a.m. with that hollow post-credit feeling where the room is too quiet. Good enough that I'll remember the sound of claws more than any specific cutscene. Not perfect. Not trying to be. Just a grim little walk through history with a slingshot and a kid who won't stop asking why. You could do worse on a rainy weekend.

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Lila Marsh
+8 clout
Sep 12, 2026
Played the whole damn thing in a couple of long nights and my shoulders still hold the tension. A Plague Tale: Innocence looks like someone spilled ink and candle wax across a medieval painting and then let it breathe. The mud sticks to Amicia's dress in a way that makes you want to reach into the screen and shake it out. Her cloak is practical, torn at the hem by the third hour, and Hugo's little tunic always looks one sneeze away from falling apart. That attention is better than most AAA costume budgets. The rats are the real set decoration, though. Black rivers of them, shifting like living oil. You hear the skitter first, then the squeal, and your hands tighten on the controller before you even see the swarm. Music does half the work. Strings and low drums during those chase stretches, the kind that make your pulse jump like you're the one running. Rodric shows up later with that big solid presence and a voice that doesn't waste syllables, and suddenly the silence between notes has company. Gameplay is almost entirely hide-and-slingshot. No power fantasy here. You are a girl with a rock pouch and a scared little brother, and the game never lets you forget it. Guards catch you and it's instant dead. No thrashing, no lucky scramble, just a short animation of you standing there like a deer while steel finds you. Infuriating the first dozen times. Then you start treating every bush and shadow like gospel. Switching tools mid-panic is clumsy; the menus feel one button too deep when someone's already yelling. Puzzles stay simple, more environmental busywork than brain burners. Light a torch, toss a rock, wait for the rats to shift. After a while it settles into a rhythm that either soothes or bores you depending on how much coffee you had. I liked the slow burn more than I expected. Early chapters drag their feet, lots of quiet walking and whispered "stay close," but then the journey grabs the wheel and the scenery starts earning its keep. Snow, ruins, half-burned villages. You feel the cold through the screen. Characters land unevenly. Amicia hardens in ways that feel earned by the body count around her, though the script sometimes telegraphs the next emotional beat a little early. Hugo is a kid who asks too many questions and somehow never becomes annoying. Side people stick better than they should. One big quiet man in particular ends up carrying more heart than the main pair some nights. The story itself leans on familiar beats—family, loss, monsters both human and furred—but the historical wrapper keeps it from feeling like pure copy-paste. Black Death France looks correctly miserable. Fires, empty streets, the constant sense that the next door could hold plague or worse. No lectures, just the weight of the place. I finished it and immediately thought about the sequel people keep mentioning. That usually means something worked. The dog thing still stings, by the way. Nobody warned me properly. Combat never opens up the way action fans want, so if you came looking to cleave through knights you will bounce off hard. Stealth purists and story junkies will stay. The OST alone is worth the headphones. Platinum run took me longer than it should have because I kept stopping to stare at a ruined monastery under rain. A little mean take: the game knows it's pretty and occasionally coasts on that. Some chapters feel padded with another rat tunnel just to stretch the runtime. Still, the hours vanish. I did not hate the simple puzzles once I stopped expecting Portal. I just wanted one more moment where Amicia could actually fight back instead of freezing. Petty complaint from someone who survived the swarm sections by pure nerves. Clothes get dirtier. Voices get quieter. Rats never stop. You play as a sister who would rather throw stones than speeches, and that keeps it grounded when other games would start monologuing about destiny. I shut it down around 2 a.m. with that hollow post-credit feeling where the room is too quiet. Good enough that I'll remember the sound of claws more than any specific cutscene. Not perfect. Not trying to be. Just a grim little walk through history with a slingshot and a kid who won't stop asking why. You could do worse on a rainy weekend.
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A Plague Tale: Innocence

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