Landing on PC, PS4, and Xbox One in May 2019, the first Plague Tale game set a strong precedent for the budding franchise, delivering a narrative-led adventure that put character growth and emotional storytelling at the forefront of the experience. While A Plague Tale: Innocence and its 2022 sequel A Plague Tale: Requiem featured stealth mechanics, combat was far from its primary focus. The same can’t be said, however, for the upcoming Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy.
Back in April, I attended a preview event for Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy in Paris. Along with around an hour or so of hands-on game time, I was given the opportunity to talk with Carol-Ann Bañuls, the Lead Writer on this new Plague Tale prequel. While our discussion covered topics like Resonance‘s Uncharted and Indiana Jones influences and Bañuls’ favorite part of the writing process, by far the most interesting part of our conversation was when Bañuls spoke about just how much Resonance differs from the last two Plague Tale entries, and why that’s something Asobo Studio is going out of its way to achieve.
Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy Features a Very Different Protagonist
2019’s A Plague Tale: Innocence introduced fans to Amicia de Rune, a 15-year-old daughter of a French nobleman who’s thrust into the heart of a political and supernatural nightmare where her young brother Hugo is being hunted by the French Inquisition. Amicia’s journey continues in A Plague Tale: Requiem, where she’s tasked with finding a cure for Hugo’s exceptionally rare disease while still being ruthlessly hunted.
Taking place 15 years before the events of A Plague Tale: Requiem, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy sees players assume the role of Sophia, a smuggler ally that Amicia met during the events of Requiem‘s main story. Unlike Amicia, who was raised as a French noble, Sophia was born on the streets and was thrown head-first into a life of crime. Bañuls shed some more light on the primary aspects that set Sophia apart from Amicia:
“Sophia is very different from Amicia. Amicia faces violence but she wasn’t destined to. It was something she had to face at a really young age. She had to learn how to deal with things herself. But Sophia was born in a violent environment. She learned to fight from a very young age. She grew up in a gang led by her father. Her story is very different from Amicia’s. She was born strong, and she’ll learn to open herself and be more vulnerable. I think it was the other way around with Amicia.”
These core differences between Plague Tale protagonists were made apparent the moment I began my recent hands-on preview of Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy. As an experienced fighter, a good portion of Sophia’s gameplay revolves around almost Soulslike combat mechanics. Players are given immediate access to fast attacks, heavy critical strikes, parries, dodges, and a grappling hook, all of which Sophia uses with elegance and ease. As Bañuls said, Sophia can certainly handle herself in a fight. Her journey of growth is going to be more on the emotional side than the physical.
Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy Is Aiming to be a Faster, More Action-Packed Adventure
With a much greater focus on combat, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy is inherently a much more energetic game than the prior Plague Tale entries. According to Bañuls, the writing process on Resonance actually began with, and continued to center around the concept of creating a more fast-paced experience for players:
“With Resonance, we began with wanting to give the player a new experience. It was all about expanding the universe, but also opening it up to new players. We wanted more action. We wanted faster pacing… For this perspective, Sophia was the perfect character because she was linked to the series, but she offered us a new way to tell stories.”
That faster pace was felt throughout my Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy hands-on preview. The one chapter I played saw Sophia and her fellow smuggler and long-time friend Leni reaching the island of Crete, which is the first step in their journey to uncover the myth of the Minotaur and their attempt to understand why Sophia feels an innate connection to the island. While there were some nice heartfelt moments of dialogue between the two, any conversation was kept brief as the game continued to funnel me from combat arena to environmental puzzle to platforming sequence in quick succession, giving the prequel a strong sense of forward momentum.
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