A Plague Tale: Innocence - Q&A and Video Review

@starnews A Q&A interview with Asobo Studios about A Plague Tale: Innocence. Additionally Rob Cram has reviewed the game.

loading…

Star News: The game is gorgeous, and it's done with an in-house engine. Why did you decide to go that way versus bringing in a middleware engine and do you feel it was easier/harder in the long run to do it that way?

Renard: I'm not a programmer but it was certain we were going to use our technology. We have a very strong team of engineers upgrading the engine based on the needs for each game we do. In the case of Plague, the visual rendering was one of the priority and the engine made a huge leap forward from the beginning to the end of the production, as you can easily see on screen. It's just a tradition in the company to keep pushing the engine forward. I can't say it's always the easier way, but it's a long term investment.



Star News: Though it's not what I'd call an action-heavy title, Amicia gains quite the arsenal of abilities via alchemy. While things like sparking/extinguishing flames and knocking out enemies made the list, were there skills you wanted to put in that you had to leave on the drawing board? If so, what were they and why did they get cut?

Renard: Everything we did was based on what Amicia was able to do as a 15 y.o. noble girl facing the reality of a dying world. We knew she wasn't going to fight with a sword for example, and it helped a lot narrow the possibilities.

We did cut one alchemical ammo that eventually wasn't useful in the gameplay, but nothing big. A Plague tale is not a big game, so we had to take the right decisions and limit wandering around too much (which we did anyway but hey, it happens everywhere).

[…]

Thanks Farflame!

More information.

Big company PR idiots are busily pushing this junk down the throat of the force-fed masses.

Not really, no.
The current PR "hits" are some nuclear disaster true story (yea, right) tv show by people who weren't even close nor can read Чернобыл but write Chernobyl instead (why it's not spelled Chernobil?) and 2001 ripoff game where you play HAL called Observation.

Not saying this means I'm buying Plague Tale. Seen some mushroomy gameplay video somewhere. It has automatic buhbye from me.

Originally Posted by joxer
and 2001 ripoff game where you play HAL called Observation.

You are not really playing HAL. You can probably decide… See 1:18 of this video:

Originally Posted by joxer
Not saying this means I'm buying Plague Tale. Seen some mushroomy gameplay video somewhere.

Does it mean you wont buy VtmB 2 or Cyberpunk 2077 or Realms Beyond if you will ever see a small glimpse of "gameplay" of these games on console?

Actually no. It's not about the platform but about controls.
If I spot XYAB idiocy on screen or kindergarden shapefitting objects insult, then it does.
Autoaim has no place in my home.

Originally Posted by joxer
Actually no. It's not about the platform but about controls.
If I spot XYAB idiocy on screen or kindergarden shapefitting objects insult, then it does.
Autoaim has no place in my home.

then don't buy either because just like this game it will have both gamepad controll options AND mouse options.
This game plays like any other PC game if you use mouse, just like Cyperpunk will..

This is decent game if you like linear, story driven games.. It's (very) similar to Last of Us but not as good when it comes to characters.

I seriously doubt Cyberpunk will have autoaim by default. Especially after CDpr decided it'll play first person.

Plague Tale looks really neat but really short for $45. Guess I'll wish list it for next year.

Originally Posted by joxer
I seriously doubt Cyberpunk will have autoaim by default. Especially after CDpr decided it'll play first person.

why would it matter how the gamepad controls are if you're playing with a mouse anyways? Mouse controls never has auto-aim, not in this game, not in any game that i've played with mouse. I'm currently playing this game with a mouse and it's like any other third person 3D game, nothing auto.

Originally Posted by Zloth
Plague Tale looks really neat but really short for $45. Guess I'll wish list it for next year.

Around 12h isn't short imo.. I think LoU is around that too, it felt really long. I actually prefer when games are more in the 10-12h range than in the 20h range because that means tons of useless filler content to drag it out and, usually, bore the player to death.
For RPG's 10-12h might be a bit short though, but it's not a RPG.

Originally Posted by vurt
why would it matter how the gamepad controls are if you're playing with a mouse anyways? Mouse controls never has auto-aim, not in this game, not in any game that i've played with mouse. I'm currently playing this game with a mouse and it's like any other third person 3D game, nothing auto.

Last game I finished - Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
Already posted somewhere, if you set combat difficulty on easy - it autoaims. Even if you're using mouse, it'll autoaim.
Of course I played the game with k+m. Normal difficulty. Because I make headshots easily with the mouse and am not interested in garbage. What matters to me, doesn't have to matter to you, of course, just please don't assume autoaim with mouse doesn't exist. It does and it's called easy.

Originally Posted by vurt
Around 12h isn't short imo.. I think LoU is around that too, it felt really long. I actually prefer when games are more in the 10-12h range than in the 20h range because that means tons of useless filler content to drag it out and, usually, bore the player to death.
For RPG's 10-12h might be a bit short though, but it's not a RPG.

I don't like when games last less than 40 hours generally, but that doesn't mean I'll hate a short game, Mars War Logs is an example of a shortie I loved.
Filler doesn't have to be a low quality repetition/grind/walkingsim.

It's extremely rare that a game can be interesting for 40h. Most games i quit well before it's over because they couldn't keep it interesting.

Makes sense that a game played on easy is very easy. Again i'm not sure what the problem is, play on medium instead?

The problem is mushrooms are plastic and useless junk and I don't want to pay a single dime for any junk.
When I see a video of a videogame presented with mushrooms junk, I lose interested in it instantly. If I buy a game not realizing it's mushroomsbased, I refund it and thumb it down on steam.

Clear now?