A Plague Tale: Innocence - Dodging Rats and Inquisitors in medieval France

[Wirdschowerdn]

http://aplaguetale.com

Spoiler

http://www.asobostudio.com/games/the-plague

First preview from the Focus Home event last week:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/02/08/a-plague-tale-innocence-rats/

A Plague Tale: Innocence has gaming’s best rats

By Adam Smith on February 8th, 2017 at 1:00 pm.

It’s a strange thing to be known for, but A Plague Tale: Innocence [official site] will almost certainly be That One Game With The Brilliant Rats. As soon as footage starts to spread around the internet, it’s the rats that people will settle on because they are the entire point of the exercise. With all apologies to the two kids who are the actual protagonists, sneaking through a plague-ridden medieval French city and avoiding both inquisitors and rats, it’s the swarms that steal the show. Both as a game mechanic and a technical feat, the rats are king. It makes Dishonored look like a petting zoo.


Watching a slice of Plague Tale, played by a developer, reminded me of seeing the Mardi Gras crowds in Hitman Blood Money for the first time. Games often avoid depicting large groups of moving characters, preferring to treat crowds as a single entity rather than a larger entity made up of many smaller but discrete elements. I loved that in that Murder of Crows level, a gunshot would cause groups of people to separate, splitting into their own unique patterns of panic and escape.

A Plague Tale, in its current form, puts its big idea right on the menu screen. A swarm of rats, each one moving dynamically, are feasting on a corpse. You can see them squirming up and around one another, nibbling and biting and fighting for space. And then, when you press start, a carriage rattles past in the street outside the building where the body is lying and its lantern sends a pool of light splashing through the window. The rats peel away from the light, scurrying and scratching, and then slowly inch their way back to the feast once it has passed.

It’s grotesquely gorgeous and explains the game’s central conceit extremely well. You play as two children, though there’s no evidence of a smart Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons style control system at this point. It looks like you’ll always, or mostly, be in control of Amicia, the older of the two, or whether you’ll also control tiny little Hugo who is about six years old. Amicia is either pre-teen or barely into her teens, but she seems capable enough, at least in the brains department, outsmarting the chaps who are hunting her and her brother. It’s a stealth game, based almost entirely around light rather than sound.


Rats don’t like the light, so the darkness is often a sea of teeth and eyes. Portable light sources keep them at bay, but are hard to come by, so you’ll need to stick to what light there is in the environments, while destroying the lanterns and torches that the inquisitors carry. When you do, they’re soon covered in rats, screaming and devoured. Grim.

The small chunk of the game I saw might not actually be in the game at all, with release possibly a year and a half away or more, but as a technical demonstration it was impressive. At one point, rats pour through a church’s windows like streams of oil, flooding the floor and lapping against the flicker of torchlight that protects the protagonists. They’re fluid, like a particle system with teeth and claws, and the way that they writhe and surge adds an element of horror to what might be fairly conventional environmental light-based puzzles.

It’s too early to know whether the game will live up to its rats, but I do like seeing a mechanic directly tied to exciting tech. The historical setting has clear elements of fantasy, not least in the rats themselves, but will be mostly grounded in reality, and if the environments are depicted half as well as their inhabitants, it’ll be a beautiful game if nothing else.

Side note: developers Asobo worked on a game based on the Pixar film Ratatouille and that amuses me.

I love everything rotten and degenerate and medieval. Don Peste

 

[Rahdulan]

Focus Home Interactive

They sure get around.

Looks interesting enough and god knows we can always use more [good] stealth games. Will keep an eye on.

 

[Don Peste]

I don't think that's a fair depiction of hard-working, honest, plague-bearing rats, but it sounds interesting. Too early, though.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Here's an interview:
http://wccftech.com/interview-plague-tale-innocence/

A Plague Tale: Innocence Interview – Of Rats and Inquisitors

By Rosh Kelly

You may not have heard of the recently announced A Plague Tale: Innocence, but it might be worth keeping an eye on, if for no other reason then to make sure it doesn’t bite at your heel. It’s a game set in a Medieval France that has been overrun with murderous rats and killer inquisitors. You play as a young girl trying to keep her and her brother safe during these very dangerous times. We caught up with a producer from developer Asobo to ask about the game, and what is with all the creepy rats.


What made you decide to do a game with such a focus on rats?

We wanted to have a game with a hard period to live in for our characters. So when we looked back at the history, we thought the medieval time was perfect in terms of what happened. There was a war between the English and French, one of the thousand wars we had together, and there was the arrival of the Black Plague in Europe. There was the reaction of the Church and the Inquisition. Everything was set up to be awful.

And when you look at the paintings of the time by the Church, there was this representation of the flow of rats and the rotten flesh. The Black Plague was the worst nightmare, maybe a punishment for the sins of the humans.

It was definitely a place we wanted to set our game in because we are sadistic. We loved the black plague idea and we asked what was the most common depiction of the plague and it was the rats. And we started to think we could play the rats with the light. It was almost obvious.

I know it’s not the case in real life that rats can’t go into the light, but it sort of makes sense. It is an interesting setting because if you take this mechanic and you have this light coming in from, let’s say, the window, and if you close the shutters the rats come in. There are lots of ways to play with it.

It’s clear how much effort you put into the rats. How long did it take you with the sound design alone?

It took a long time to get the sound for the rats. It had to be a lot but not too much and sometimes I think we can still go a bit further because you don’t hear the rats falling from everywhere and it’s not really emphasized by the sound. So it’s a long procedure.

What is the basic story of A Plague Tale: Innocence?

So there are two noble children whose parents are killed at the beginning of the game. These children aren’t trying to find out why or get revenge, though, they’re just trying to survive. They don’t have a deep plan. They are told to go find someone, that this person is the only one they can trust and the journey starts there.

We don’t want to have a super child with a big plan. It’s not credible. The children are trying to think in the moment, they’re not trying to build a castle and make defenses. At the very beginning at least they are reacting to events rather than causing them. Maybe at some point, they decide to stop running but that would be later one.

Talk a bit abut the setting.

It’s going to take place in France. Though they will move around a bit it will be around the southwest of France. They will have a journey but with the rats and the Inquisition on all the roads, they won’t be able to move far away. As well they are only children from sheltered upbringing, and they don’t know other places every well.

So the two main antagonists in the game are the Inquisition and the rats. Can you pit them against each other?

So we’ve built it as a triangular structure, you have the rats, the humans and the light. Those three things work with each other. If you go by day that means you’ll only have rats in shadowy places or inside, so you can’t use the rats against the inquisition. In the opposite direction if you go by night the guards can barely see you, but you have rats. You can take the light to defend yourself but then the guards can see you.

In the worst case scenario, you have rain where you have no fire at all. Sometimes you can attract guards to some places because the Inquisition has some ways to exterminate the rats. So sometimes you will need to use them to get past the rats and sometimes it’s the other way. You have to use them in both ways.

Is there a supernatural element at all in the game?

It is more of a question of perception, and how the child perceives the world versus how adults view the world. You are a child in the game so you are seeing the events through the eyes of a child. What they can see can be nightmarish and is far beyond the capacity of understanding for adults. Children can leave this sheltered lives and barely understand the world outside. They don’t know about the plague, about the war, they don’t know about the cruelty of the war.

The children you play as in Plague Tale are nobility, they lived in a small paradise and the whole world has shifted for them, and now all the see is violence. So their perception of the world and how the events unfold will shift throughout the game.

With the main character being a child, will she be able to fight the Inquisition?

She has her slingshot, that she can use to interact with the enemies and the world at large. She can destroy Inquisition lanterns so the rats can kill them, or knock over coals to create fire for instance. And her sling will have upgrades. So there will be different ways to use it and different ammo to use that will give her different approaches to situations. She won’t have any crossbow or swords or anything.

I’m a fully grown man and I couldn’t lift a medieval sword, so maybe there will be more but she won’t be a little knight.

How long do you think A Plague Tale: Innocence will be once it’s finished?

Between ten and twelve hours. And it’s going to be a linear game. We really wanted to focus on the narrative and keep developing them in a very linear way. You’ll still have multiple approaches to each situation as much as possible, but it will still be a linear game.

The game focuses on siblings, so will the brother be a constant companion?

It is something we are still discussing because we want to create a balance and we need a lot of interesting play. It can be complicated and hard to balance and if it is just giving him the occasional stupid order it won’t be fun.

The relationship will be a major factor in the game and they will both be able to different things from each other. They will need each other.

Are you thinking of having multiple endings?

We are thinking of having only one good ending at the minute because we are having some very good endings at the minute. We prefer to have a solid story and to do it well we will need to focus on one very good story. We have so much to say about those characters that we don’t think it can be told effectively in multiple endings right now. We have a long story to tell.

I don’t know if that will change. A Plague Tale: Innocence doesn’t come out until 2018 so that might not be what we decide at the end, but for now we are only looking at the one ending.

How will you build the world of A Plague Tale?

So it’s very important for us to encourage the players to explore. You can observe people talking which will help us build a credible world and it’s the sort of thing that makes players think that there is a story there. So we are trying to do that as much as possible.

But it’s hard because some people play the game just for the game itself, but without context it sometimes doesn’t make sense. Without it, the game wouldn’t feel as accurate and we really to craft this world to be perfectly credible.

Are you planning on doing anything with the PS4 Pro or the Xbox Scorpio?

To be honest it’s a discussion we haven’t started yet. We’ve been building on the PC version and we are trying to do everything to be 4K ready and everything. So we have the foundation there and when it’s time why wouldn’t we use everything to make the game as good as possible? But for now we are focusing on the PC and once the quality is there for PC we will start adjusting for console and talk about implementing something for Pro and Scorpio then.

The game is called A Plague Tale: Innocence. What are the chances of this becoming a series?

I hope so. We are going to see how it goes. For now, we are focusing on this one and it’s a big deal for us. We haven’t made this kind of game ever and for us the universe is really big and people have had a really big reaction to it. I know the publisher are really enthusiastic about it so if we can explore the universe, of course we will.

Thank you for your time.

 

[Reinhardt]

I’m a fully grown man and I couldn’t lift a medieval sword

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Third or first person view???

 

[LESS T_T]

Developed by Asobo Studio and featured on the Focus home Interactive stand (West Hall # 4512), A Plague Tale: Innocence is unveiled today for the very first time in its E3 teaser.

1349. The plague ravages the Kingdom of France. Amicia and her younger brother Hugo are pursued by the Inquisition through villages devastated by the disease. On their way, they will have to join forces with other orphans and evade swarms of rats using fire and light. Aided only by the link that binds their fates together, the children will face the darkest days of history in their struggle to survive. The adventure begins on consoles and PC… and the time of innocence ends.

A Plague Tale: Innocence will be released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

 

[Garrettt]

Their twitter account mentions that they will be showing off gameplay footage at E3... yet nothing seems to have surfaced yet.

If the game truly is only 10-12 hours long I hope they don't try to charge more than $15-$20 for it... but they'll probably charge 40-60.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

http://www.godisageek.com/2018/02/a...nd-an-interesting-take-on-the-horrors-of-war/

A Plague Tale: Innocence has a dark tone, and an interesting take on the horrors of war
Oh, rats

by Dan Murphy on February 14, 2018


The last time I saw A Plague Tale: Innocence was a year ago and the only thing the developers had to show was a prototype of the game they wished to create. The tech was already there and it looked great, but an actual game hadn’t yet been fully formed. Now, 12 months later, I’m happy to report that it seems as though progress is being made quickly and the game is now taking shape. They even fixed the annoying English accents in a game set in Southern France, which is a big plus from me.

So in this hands off preview I got to see an actual level that will be in the game, Chapter 5, which sees our characters rowing their way down a river through the war torn country side. You play as 15-year old Amicia, who is looking after her 5-year old brother Hugo, and they are both accompanied by a teenage boy called Lucas.

The trio are trying to get to safety and having abandoned their raft they’re following an aqueduct on foot which will lead them to their destination. Not long goes by, however, until the effects of the war between France and England become apparent. They stumble upon a battlefield that is littered with rotting corpses of man and animal. Amicia takes Hugo’s hand and they slowly step their way over maimed bodies when a horrifying rumble begins. An army of blood thirsty rats burst out of a dead horse and now the danger is really here.

The rats themselves are just as grim and minging as when I wrote about them a year ago, as seemingly thousands of them scurry about in the mud with their beady glistening eyes and revolting tails. ASOBO studios should be really proud of the horror they’ve created there.

This is when the main gameplay of A Plague Tale comes in: a puzzle game in which you have to safely navigate your way around ravenous rats and soldiers who’ll do your harm. Amicia has tricks and tools at her disposal to do this. Firstly, the rats don’t go near fire so to make her way through the sea of rodents she’ll use different sources of light to weave out a path. Her best way of doing this is by using her sling. The sling can fire igniters that will set torches and bails of hay ablaze, sending the rats away. She can also find sticks and use them as torches, or use other moveable sources of light to get through.

The sling also comes in handy when dealing with soldiers. Rocks can be fired either at soldier’s torches so when their light goes out they will be ceased upon by rats and eaten alive or by simply flinging them at the soldier’s heads and knocking them out cold. There are also other environmental puzzles that will require the help of your companions to get things done.

I found A Plague Tale to have a very Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons vibe about it. Both in theme, as two siblings are working in unison to survive, and also in game play with the types of puzzles that will be in their path. But A Plague Tale is taking a much darker tone. This is an atmospheric, dirty game that doesn’t shy away from death and trauma. Oh, and did I mention the rats are disgusting?

What represents this perfectly is a feature of the game that was mentioned to us, though I didn’t actually get to see it. For certain tasks Amicia will have to go off on her own and tell Hugo to stay where he is, but if you stray too far away from him or are gone too long Hugo will try and get to you and will probably die in a horrific, gruesome manner.

I was left thoroughly impressed with my brief look at A Plague Tale: Innocence, and with the progress made in a year since I last saw it I can’t wait to play the finished game.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...nnocence-wants-to-be-the-last-of-us-with-rats

A Plague Tale: Innocence wants to be The Last of Us with rats
Horde mode.

By Edwin Evans-Thirlwell Published 15/02/2018

It's the eyes that really get to you - scores of them, glittering coppery-red like the pilot lights on a hundred flamethrowers. And that ceaseless ebb and surge of tiny, ravenous bodies, darting at your heels only to wince back from the glare of your torch. A Plague Tale's corner of 14th century France is home to many terrors - the black death, the Inquisition, raiding English soldiers - but the most tenacious and oppressive are the rats, a lethal mass swirling through towns hollowed out by disease and erupting from the shambles of battlefields. It's a threat you must learn to live with, while guiding nobleman's daughter Amicia and her sickly infant brother Hugo to sanctuary, and a threat you can turn to your advantage. The rats aren't fussy about who they devour, after all, and one girl's chittering Gothic metaphor is another girl's handy terrain trap.

As that gruesome notion may suggest, Innocence's narrative is all about the loss of it. Created by Asobo Studios, a developer otherwise known for contract work on projects like Quantum Break, it's a third-person "single-player co-op" odyssey in the tradition of The Last of Us, where the the rigours of travel catalyse a deepening relationship between the character you control, Amicia, and the frail soul in her charge. As the story begins, Amicia and Hugo are forced to flee their castle home by the Inquisition's appearance. Why the Church's enforcers are after them remains to be seen but presumably has to do with Hugo's mysterious terminal affliction, which is styled a "blood curse" by other characters.

The pair aren't close, to begin with. Hugo has been quarantined since birth, and Amicia isn't exactly the cuddly big sister: she harbours a certain bitterness about her brother's greater share of their mother's attention. Having been left to her own devices as a child, Amicia is also independent and resourceful where Hugo is (at first) clingy and easily spooked. It's a relationship that comes across in a variety of small ways as you play - so far, the emphasis is on such passing interactions rather than cutscenes. At one point in our demo, which occurs a third of the way through this 10-12 hour story, Hugo appears brandishing a dead man's shield, prompting Amicia to snap at him incredulously. Hugo's naivety is to some degree an asset, insulating him against a full understanding of the horrors all around. "Do you think we're hurting them?" he frets, as the pair step gingerly over corpses while attempting to reach a distant chateau.

Most of the game's puzzles seem to involve dealing with the rats, who'll overrun and consume you instantly unless kept at bay with firelight. Amicia can make torches if she has the materials, and you can set things like braziers and haystacks aflame to create pools of safety, though not everything will burn indefinitely. She also has a sling that can be used to interact with things you can't reach or, less pleasantly, knock lanterns from the hands of human foes to expose them to the rats. Some puzzles involve having Hugo wait for you or hold an object in place - keeping a trebuchet's burning arm lowered, for example, so that Amicia can tip-toe out and grab a dropped item. Where Ellie in The Last of Us could often fend for herself, however, Hugo may panic if left alone for too long, raising the alarm and getting himself killed. Direct conflict with soldiers is, needless to say, ill-advised, but Amicia can use her sling to stun attackers when there's no option but to fight.

As far as third-person games with a stealth-puzzle bent go, all of this is hardly exotic, but Amicia and Hugo seem a sympathetic duo, and the landscape they must traverse is arresting enough to make up for any apathy about how you do the traversing. Our demo took place in the shadow of an aqueduct, its upper half lost in mist as though vanishing into some other, kinder reality. Down the road there's the prospect of ghost towns, fortresses and perilous, deteriorating interiors. A Plague Tale lacks the resources and polish of a Naughty Dog project, with some rickety-looking animations - in paying tribute to the latter (the brilliant Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is another influence), it risks inviting a ruinous comparison. But the world it portrays is captivatingly grim and grounded, alternating between a spectral hush and unholy, writhing activity.

Rats are, of course, a much-vilified species in art and media generally. They have long served as low-level opponents in games of all stripes, swarming the sewers of Dark Souls and squeaking in the cellars of MMO villages, awaiting the arrival of a level-one adventurer. It doesn't take much probing to discover that such representations owe more to human morbidity than the creature's own habits. Rats are represented as filthy; in fact, they clean and groom themselves regularly. Rats are represented as a homogeneous, selfless horde; in fact, they are sociable individuals who play together, form personal attachments and respond to one another's distress. Rats (or rather, the fleas they carry) are often branded as culprits for the explosion of bubonic plague in medieval Europe: in fact, recent research indicates that the disease was transmitted largely from human to human.

The presence of rats can actually be cause for optimism at points in the game. Those gleaming eyes may horrify, but their absence suggests that other, less tangible threats are abroad, things you can't deter with fire or bring down with a well-aimed stone. "The funny part is that the rats are innocent," lead designer Kevin Choteau hints. "When you see rats in a village that means it's safe, it means there's no sickness. If the rats start to disappear it means something bad is happening."

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

 

[Wulfstand]

This looks very intriguing, color me interested.

 

[wyes gull]

Stretching the boundaries of "gameplay". Or is it shrinking?

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

"The Last of Us with rats"

With one tenth of the budget, and just as good?

 

[Life of the Party]

 

[praetor]

is this a sequel to Ratatouille?

 

[Life of the Party]

 

[Life of the Party]

In most games, rats don’t pose much of a threat. At worst, they’re in the background in gritty urban environments or cheap fodder for guns and spells. With “A Plague Tale: Innocence,” however, they’re a nightmarish manifestation of a deadly disease — and if you’re careful, you can use them to your advantage.

Coming to PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in 2019, “A Plague Tale: Innocence” is an action-adventure game set in 14th century France, a dark time for protagonists Amicia and her little brother Hugo. They lost their parents to the ruthless Inquisition, forcing them to survive on their own. To top it off, five-year-old Hugo is suffering from a strange illness, and ravenous rodents are spreading throughout the country, eager to devour anything that’s in their way.

As the teenage Amicia, you can’t fight or destroy them. You either avoid the rats altogether or redirect their hunger elsewhere.

“A Plague Tale: Innocence” is developer Asobo Studio’s first original project since releasing the racing game “Fuel” in 2009. During an interview with Variety at E3 2018, lead designer Kevin Choteau explained that the team wanted to make an emotional character-focused game, citing “The Last of Us” and “Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons” as major inspirations. They decided to set it in their own backyard of Bordeaux, France, and found that it was fertile ground for the kind of story they wanted to tell.

“We started to look at the history of our region. In the 14th century, there was the Hundred Years’ War in the southwest of France against the English. … At the same time, the Black Plague started to arrive, and it was the end of the Great Inquisition,” said Choteau. “So it was the crossway of everything, the worst parts of humanity. It was the perfect setting to put our children in.”

Despite its historical roots, “A Plague Tale” isn’t meant to be a realistic medieval game. Choteau described it more as a dark fairy tale, one that plays around with supernatural elements. Amicia, for example, can craft items and ammo for her slingshot using her knowledge of alchemical recipes. And the diseased rats represent a different version of the Black Plague, with their exact origins being a key part of the mystery. They act more like zombies: not only because they consume any piece of flesh they see, but also because they travel in swarms.

Choteau said up to 5,000 rats can be on screen at once, ebbing and flowing like a living tidal wave. The only thing they’re afraid of is fire. They’ll immediately escape to the shadows if they’re near any kind of light source, so you can carve a path through them by carrying a torch or igniting braziers. Alternatively, if you see enemy soldiers around, you can take out their lanterns with your slingshot and watch thousands of rats feast on their newfound treat, picking the bones clean.

But this comes at a cost: If they’re consumed, you won’t be able to scavenge crafting materials from the soldiers’ bodies. Manipulating the rats, and deciding whether to use them against your enemies, will be an ongoing struggle.

“When we were working on the pitch [for the game], we tried other supernatural things, like smoke … . It was not as grounded or as fleshy as the rats. But the rats were technically the most difficult thing [to make],” said Choteau. “We’ve done a lot of R&D and engineering to have those 5,000 rats displayed on the screen at the same time. It always surprises me — even though I designed their behavior and know how they work — to see how natural they can feel, with the throng moving and spreading.”

Between the rats and the soldiers from the Inquisition, Asobo is putting Amicia and Hugo through hell — and that’s the point. Ultimately, “A Plague Tale” is about family, and how those relationships are tested in times of great distress. Their estrangement from one another adds another layer of complexity, as Hugo’s sickness kept him away from his sister and father for most of his life (with the mother taking care of him).

“They’re on the road, they don’t know anything [about what’s going on], they don’t know each other … and now they’re facing this world that seems to be so much more brutal than anything they’ve ever seen,” said Choteau.

 

[Life of the Party]

Roots of Innocence

Introduction

We’re happy to kick off a series of articles today, unveiling more details and info about the making of A Plague Tale: Innocence - a new adventure game developed by Asobo Studio and coming in 2019 to PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

Next year, you’ll join orphan siblings Amicia and young Hugo as they struggle through the heart of a brutal and ruthless world, in which millions of rats ravage the Kingdom of France - already beset by war and the Black Death.



But who are these young heroes? How have they been created? What are their inspirations? Where do these dark battlefields and gloomy landscapes come from? How did our team build a tale about the Black Death and children on the run? What have been the main corner stones for the creation of the game?

We invite you to get an insight into the creative process behind A Plague Tale: Innocence. The production of the game has been intense and captivating. The original idea comes from the ruthless Middle Ages. Amicia, the strong-headed firstborn, and Hugo, the overprotected younger brother, are born from this fascinating world. They are the starting point of our tale.

They are the soul of this fantasy which echoes in everyone at Asobo Studio. Amicia and Hugo are about our family circles and daily lives. That’s also why the game takes place in these landscapes from the South West of France, where medieval families, the Valois and Plantagenets, fought each other. It’s our French South-West.



Every day, a team of forty people does its best to make A Plague Tale: Innocence worth of the vision we originally had. We all had to polish every tiny aspect of the game to deliver a final experience we’re proud of.

If you want to dive into this creative adventure, its underlying thoughts, and how everything lined up to be the game you’ll play next year, then join us each week for exclusive info about the making of A Plague Tale: Innocence!

See you next week at the roots of innocence.

https://forums.focus-home.com/topic/7420/roots-of-innocence-introduction

 

[Life of the Party]

E3 2018 Preview: A Plague Tale: Innocence Unleashes the Rat Pack



Some of the most brilliant games come from odd ideas. What if you took something that was traditionally background in a game and brought it to the forefront? That’s exactly what A Plague Tale: Innocence is doing, swarming the screen with carnivorous plague-ridden rats, where the only safe place is in the light. To top off the tale, you don’t play as some hunky hero or sexy vixen. Players take on the role of Amicia, a teenager in France helping her sick little brother cross a torn landscape full of those bloodthirsty rats.

Immediately noticeable is the rat tech. The horde swarms , scampering around and over each other, a single hive-mind entity that maintains the individuality of every one of its members. While the studio could have simply and easily made some kind of looping rat-mass texture that seethes and teems across every surface, they instead landed on this much more intense and admittedly almost accidental swarm. The developers have said that up to 5,000 individual rats can be in any given scene.

Amicia can move through them by manipulating fire and objects in the environment. As much as the rats are a danger and a barrier, they can also provide puzzle solutions, like devouring guards so that you can move around them without being seen. It’s kind of hard for a guard to spot and catch you when they’re rat food. There’s something viscerally satisfying about slinging a rock into a guard’s lantern and hearing his screams as the light goes out. While we didn’t get to see a lot of this, there will be the ability to gather materials and craft various items to solve puzzles in different ways.



Puzzle solving isn’t always just about manipulating the light. Sometimes Amicia needed to drop a hanging corpse for the rats to feed on, freeing up a path for her and the kids to move forward. The developers hinted that the way you interact and deal with this threat will evolve throughout the course of A Plague Tale’s 12 hour campaign.

The world, though dark and full of plague, is beautifully realized. One of the first scenes of the demo is the three kids coming across a field of bodies. In an emotionally charged moment, Amicia needs to help the other two forward across the corpses. It’s not an experience that she or these kids should have to go through, yet the three of them need to remain strong if they want to make it through.

The final scene of the demo further casts emotion on the situation. In a world where everyone is trying to survive, sometimes good people need to do bad things, including our hero. Near the end, Amicia obtains a torch which pushes the rats out of the way. Walking through a narrow tunnel, they approach a man screaming for help. There’s only one way forward, however, and pushing through means the man ends up devoured by the swarm of rats. Amicia apologizes profusely, but it’s just a glimpse at the kinds of terrible things these children will need to go through to survive.

A Plague Tale: Innocence is telling a dark and emotional fantasy story where both the heroes and the antagonist they fight against are more unconventional. There’s an enormous mystery surrounding the child’s disease and the origins of the rats, each of which I want to explore more fully as Amicia does whatever she can for survival.

http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2018/06/22/e3-2018-a-plague-tale-innocence-preview/#/slide/1

 

[Life of the Party]

Welcome back to our series of articles, unveiling more details and info about the making of A Plague Tale: Innocence, the upcoming adventure game by Asobo Studio coming 2019 to PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

Today we dive into the creative process behind the main characters: Amicia and Hugo.

A glance at video game history makes it clear that a strong character can carry a story and game world alone. With that in mind, how did we create Amicia and Hugo for A Plague Tale: Innocence?

We discussed with Sébastien Renard, Lead Narrative Designer, about the story and characters of the game. Deciding who Amicia and Hugo had to be was relatively quick, but they’ve undergone many changes and iterations throughout the production process.



The story comes from ancient tales. The team worked for a long time on old classical texts, from authors such as Perrault, Grimm and Andersen. Sébastien naturally chose to tell the tale of Amicia and Hugo the same way these authors did: by contrasting the naivety and innocence of children with a dangerous and dark world.

A Plague Tale: Innocence was born from this juxtaposition of the adults’ and childrens’ worlds, between innocence and corruption. In medieval folklore, it’s common to find the idea of purity in youth facing the trickery of the rest of the world.



This background is perfect for telling a strong, intriguing story. It’s taken a year to reach the current result. Narration is always complicated, and you must iterate a lot and make tough choices to cover all the specificities of a video game, such as level design or gameplay. The story is still evolving today.

Amicia and Hugo were born together on paper, making them inseparable for the team. This unique and strong link makes them realistic. They echo with the child that everyone has been.



It’s been a huge task to ensure they have a goal, desires, and doubts coherent with their lives, building their psyche, and making sure their reactions throughout the game are coherent with their emotional background. Creating Amicia and Hugo’s physiques was also a challenge, because a child doesn’t move, react or speak like an adult, and the team had to stick to the historical period while reflecting their personalities.

The result is two innocent children facing a brutal and ruthless world, in which millions of rats ravage the Kingdom of France - already beset by war and the Black Death.

See you next week for more info and exclusive anecdotes about the creative process behind A Plague Tale: Innocence!

https://forums.focus-home.com/topic/7482/roots-of-innocence-genesis

 

[Life of the Party]

A spark of something awesome — A Plague Tale: Innocence E3 preview

E3 is an awesome event where game developers get to show off their latest and most exciting concepts. You see amazing multi-million dollar AAA titles, but it’s often the smaller titles that you see behind closed doors that surprise you the most. Developer Asobo Studios brought us in for a demonstration of their game A Plague Tale: Innocence and I honestly didn’t know what to expect. At first it looked like a few other adventure games I’d seen…and then I saw the rats.

A Plague Tale: Innocence takes place in the 14th century, in Southwest France, right around the city of Bordeaux. In our demo, a 14 year old girl named Amicia, her 8 year old brother Hugo, and a young boy named Lucas are trying to escape from the war-torn area as soldiers patrol, looking for refugees.

Making our way towards an aqueduct on the distance, we crest a hill and stumble on a mass of dead bodies from a very large battle. As the three trudge through the dead bodies, crows picking at the dead, we find the bloated corpse of a horse. Carefully pushing past it, it begins to wriggle, exploding as rats burst from its stomach, pouring out in a river of blood and gore. These rats are full of plague, but they are afraid of light. Staying close to the nearby torches, we steer clear of them, but the ever-present threat lurks in the distance.

Using our igniter, we are able to light a nearby brazier to keep the creatures at bay, but now the beasts have multiplied. Literally thousands of rats ebb and flow, the little monsters seeking our flesh. As the light from the brazier burns low, the path we just left closes behind us.

The central plot is certainly about survival, but it’s suddenly very clear that it’s as much about making hard choices as it is about the rat menace. As we gather saltpeter and sulphur to continue to light fires, we encounter a guard using a lantern. He is able to push the rats back towards us, but given the choice of our own survival versus his, a quick rock from our sling breaks his lantern, and we let the rats do the work for us. This creates a distraction, and our trio is able to sneak past this checkpoint.

During our demo, we saw several instances of puzzle solving around using light, as well as different ways to deal with the guards in the game. Lowering a trebuchet allowed us to position light in a way to create a path, and similarly, snapping a chain on a nearby sling creates an opening for the team to enter a siege tower. Dealing with simple guards often means dealing with their light source, but armored knights are a little harder to handle. Pulling out a jar, we throw it into the sea of rats to attract the attention of a guard. This causes him to turn around, exposing his lantern, letting us hit it with a rock to end him. Using a brazier on a rolling cart, we push through the sea of rats, but that’s short lived as it gets stuck in the mud. Picking up a torch makes you able to cross a sea of rats, but it also makes you highly visible, forcing you to ditch your light sources frequently. Every light source is short lived, and (at least during our demo), no light source is used the same way twice.

During our demo, we briefly see a crafting table with a bevy of options, but the developers were hasty to say that they were eager to show it, but that’s for another day.

I came away impressed with the core gameplay loop of A Plague Tale: Innocence. It’s clear that this game is equal parts light management, rat control, and hard choices about the sanctity of life and your place in it. It’s nice when you get surprised at E3, and A Plague Tale: Innocence looks like one to watch.

A Plague Tale: Innocence is coming to Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC this fall.

http://gamingtrend.com/feature/prev...g-awesome-a-plague-tale-innocence-e3-preview/

A Plague Tale: Innocence Preview: A Unique Take on the Stealth Genre

Asobo Studio’s A Plague Tale: Innocence was easily one of the most intriguing games I got to check out while at E3 this year. I attended a hands-off preview of an early mission, and by the time the demo was over I was wishing I got to go hands on, because this game really looks like a winner in terms of visuals, narrative, and its gameplay, so it has definitely become a game that I have much interest in now after seeing more of its characters, world, and how it plays.

In A Plague Tale: Innocence you play as two young nobles who are on the run from the Spanish Inquisition in 14th century France. They’re also dealing with fallout from the Black Plague in the form of ravenous rats, which play a massive role in every aspect of this game’s gameplay, but we will get to the vermin later. Anyway, so the two main characters are both kids and you mainly control the older sister who is named Amicia, but her younger brother Hugo plays a major part in this game’s reliance on puzzles and stealth, so technically you’re always in control of both characters even though Amicia is the clear protagonist.

As one may expect after reading that brief summary of the game’s characters and setting, this game world is one that is very dark and depressing, which perfectly compliments the fact that the main characters are kids on the run. For some reason having kids as main characters really resonated with me, because when you really think about it, there haven’t been many games that star children, at least not ones with mature themes and settings. By having these two poor kids working their way through a very dark period of humanity it adds a massive layer of emotion, because seeing kids in peril, at least for me, is much more emotionally taxing than seeing another stereotypical adult hero video game lead.

The whole kids as lead characters also helps to play into the perils the gameplay presents, which as I mentioned earlier relies heavily on the use of rats infected by the Black Plague. These little furry pieces of death play an integral roll in A Plague Tale: Innocence’s stealth gameplay, which makes up a bulk of what players will be doing as they try to expose a dark secret plaguing 14th century France.

I got to see just how integral the rats are to the gameplay in the demo when Amicia and Hugo, along with another young character that was more of a NPC, came across a battlefield that was full of fallen soldiers, which naturally became a buffet for the infected rats. They literally were faced with a sea of vermin, and because they’re possessed by the plague they essentially are piranha’s on land, so any living thing that crosses their path gets eaten up in seconds flat. Luckily, like vampires and gremlins, these rats hate light, so players — through the use of Amicia’s sling — have to find creative ways to use it to spread light sources around so the young hero characters can maneuver past the rat horde.

For example, this battlefield had torches on it from looters and from the battle itself, so Amicia could use her sling to throw rocks at them to knock them over, which in turn would create enough of a distraction for the party to move to the next safe zone. I also saw her use her sling to knock lanterns out of the hands of guards, which in turn would lead to their death, but it would also lead to an open path, so little kids are tasked with killing adults for their own survival, which plays on their morality in-game, as well as your own.

Like I mentioned stealth plays a huge part in this game’s gameplay thanks to how the rats operate, so that is a main focus on the gameplay, but there are also puzzles that require risky exploration missions, as well as figuring out how to use items in the environment to get past an area that at first may seem impassable. At one point in the demo Amicia ran out of the powder she can use in her sling to bring fire embers back to a blaze to distract rats, so she had to command Hugo to stay put while she went out searching for supplies. This even kicks off a gameplay mechanic, because while Hugo will listen to his sister and do what the player commands, like any little kid if you leave him alone for too long he will panic and get himself killed, or both of you caught, so at all times this game is meant to keep you on edge. Let’s just say that it’s far from a leisurely experience, because its gameplay is designed to always keep you on your toes.

The gameplay and characters are what stood out to me, because the young leads are unique, and the gameplay scenarios they face are dire, so the whole experience looked different than what other third person action/adventure games have put forth. With that being said the visuals and voice acting also popped off the screen. The voice acting in particular was excellent, which is sometimes hard to achieve when you require kid voices, so that aspect of the game really brought a feeling of authenticity to the experience. The visuals are super dark and gritty, and they really brought 14th century France and the hell that humanity lived in to life quite well.

A Plague Tale: Innocence should definitely be on your radar if you’re into third person action/adventure games that weave in stealth and puzzle gameplay tropes. You should also check it out if you just want to experience a new take on the genre by having kids as the leads in a very mature and depressing setting. I think this game has all of the ingredients to be a special experience in 2019 when it releases for PC, Xbox One, and PS4.

http://www.entertainmentbuddha.com/...e-preview-a-unique-take-on-the-stealth-genre/

A Plague Tale: Innocence E3 2018 Preview

This was the second time I was able to check out A Plague Tale: Innocence while at E3 since I had first saw the game the year prior. I was presented the game in a similar format both years with it being a behind closed doors presentation with questions at the end. This time around the game is much closer to the full version with them showcasing an actual level, apparently the fifth one currently. A certain change-up from the year prior which was apparently just a demo to set the tone and give ideas for what they were aiming for with the full version.

Almost a tease of the experience and this new version is a huge improvement in terms of scale and visuals. In the game you play as this girl, she's guiding along a young boy which is her brother across a hostile landscape. It's during a time of great plague with rats everywhere. This era is of course the Middle Ages, in France. These creatures are your main enemy, along with soldiers that are lumbering around. The rats can count up to 5000 on the screen at once which is disgustingly charming. They really want to deliver that aspect of horror across a very realistic environment. You can actually see most of what the demo I was shown below in the video as it's edited B-Roll granted from E3 2018.

A Plague Tale: Innocence is set to launch during the first quarter of 2019, it'll present 4k resolution and have HDR support on Xbox One X which is great. This is a single player journey that's entirely narrative driven. It's a third person adventure presented in a linear fashion that gives the feeling of it being open in scale. There are choices in how you tackle situations, but you're largely pushed along the path. While rats are a huge part of this, the boy you're guiding is key and an important asset to take care of. If you're away for too long he'll become uncomfortable which could alert guards, you'll have to be careful.

You're armed with little aside from a swinging sling shot type weapon that can be upgraded at work benches. This can be used to generate light whether that's permanent or temporary or even knock light away from enemies. This then causes the rats to munch them up. A highlight of rats I want to mention is a huge colony of them bursting from a horse. It was sickening and awesome, this was right after stepping through a battlefield of dead soldiers, this is going to be one creepy game. I can't wait to see how the full release turns out and I'm eagerly awaiting A Plague Tale: Innocence.

http://articles.gamerheadquarters.com/aplaguetaleinnocencee32018preview.html

 

[Life of the Party]

A Plague Tale: Innocence Looks Harrowing And Captivating

Enter the world of France in the 14th century and find a way to escape the plague.

At last year’s E3 I saw A Plague Tale Innocence by the developers at Asobo Studio, and I was more than excited to get my hands on it whenever it was to launch. Its dark atmosphere set the mood for the 14th century, Gothic-style structure, where the windows bled in the moon’s light, and fires raged against the deep-bronze colored walls that appeared to be melting into the floorboards. Sadly, at this year’s E3, the demo wasn’t quite as interesting and didn’t showcase as much. What it did show was no where on the level of last year’s demo, but it did shed a few tidbits on some aspects of the game.

A Plague Tale Innocence is a story about a young girl named Amicia de Runes who’s on the run with her little brother Hugo, trying to escape the war and escape the plague. This is a single player only experience, which means you’ll be escorting Hugo around as Amicia, and every move will be your own. Through whatever vile plains of of filth that drench the streets and fields of France you traverse, it will be your job to get Hugo to safety through whatever means necessary.

During this year’s presentation, we find Amicia in a field- as I said, the presentation wasn’t as eye-popping as last year. The field looks to be like something like a battlefield, or possibly a rebellion of sorts. Bodies lie around everywhere atop the dirt and prairie weeds that stretch on forever; death is everywhere. Clouds are setting in all around, as monumental structures fade into the haze of the eerie field. Pools of water have formed from previous rains, but some of those pools are also thick and red with blood from this lost battle. It’s impossible to tell who won, who lost. Maybe both sides did.

Amicia holds her brother Hugo’s hand as they run through the field, trying to cross the prairie, looking for freedom from the ravages of war. As they briskly step over the downed men and their shields and their swords and spears, they’re confused; they just want to be safe and happy as all kids would like. Ahead of them is a horse, spearheaded to the ground on its side, still alive, struggling to get up. But it can’t get up. Amicia walks closer to see if she can help, just as the stomach of the horse begins to gyrate and pulse, harder, faster, wobbling unnaturally in every known direction. Then BOOM! Its stomach bursts open like a great explosive. But guts and organs don’t fall out. Instead, a swarm of rats, hungry for more, charges out and toward Amicia and Hugo.

The Light is good. Stay in the light. Torches line the prairie, one every so many feet lights the ground under the cloud canopy. The rats are coming for them. They’re weaponless, they have no means of attack. They’re only children. They run to the closest torch and relish in its warm glow as the rats continue their rampage toward the innocent children. And just as they approach, the light reflects the rats away like a barrier from the gods. The key is to avoid the rats by staying in the light.

Later on we find a man roaming the field with a lantern in his hand. He’s safe to roam around freely with that lantern, as long as it stays lit. It’s impossible for Amicia and Hugo to pass the man without getting caught by him or running into the rats. Amicia may not be able to attack, but she does have a slingshot. Her objective is to target the man’s lantern with a rock from the ground and break his lantern. She charges the slingshot, twists it around, then catapults it out and bullseyes the lantern. The lantern shatters as it hits the ground, and the rats swarm the man who no longer has safety from the light. We learn that Amicia’s slingshot is one of the very few accessories she has to get around the map without actually being able to attack or do much damage herself. It’s an inventive way to go about escorting Hugo safely, and we also learn that it can be used on the field to lower a beam to cross a field swarming with rats.

In these new ways I can see a little bit of changes to the game from I saw last year. A Plague Tale Innocence is certainly shaping up to look like a great game. Through two years of previews, however, it doesn’t seem to have a vast array of ideas that will make the game a contender for game of the year. It should, though, be something that will be fun for the short while it lasts. I’ll be looking forward to the release of this game, hoping to get a better look at France from the 14th century, and discover how Amicia and Hugo will escape the plague.

https://gamingbolt.com/a-plague-tale-innocence-looks-harrowing-and-captivating

Welcome back to our series of articles, unveiling more details and info about the making of A Plague Tale: Innocence, the upcoming adventure game by Asobo Studio coming 2019 to PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

Throughout the various demos and events where A Plague Tale: Innocence has been presented, you’ve discovered Amicia and Hugo. After presenting what went into creative process for these characters last week, today let’s dive into why their bond is so tight.

Forced out of their home and on the run from the Inquisition, Amicia and Hugo travel through the devastated South-West of France to find shelter. The brother and sister barely know each other at the very beginning of our story, but they must learn to live and grow together in order to survive the countless threats surrounding them.



Sébastien Renard, Lead Narrative Designer, recalls the origin of the siblings: “We wanted a heroine out of the ordinary. A partner gives us the opportunity to develop a growing bound between the player and the characters. We want players to gradually consider Hugo as a living and precious character that you want to protect.”

Caring about each other is a core idea for the team. Inspired by the poetic masterpiece Ico, one of the best examples of a game that highlights this idea in story and gameplay, Asobo has worked hard to convey this emotional link in the game mechanics.



It’s a narrative gamble to make Amicia and Hugo initially strangers to one another, despite being siblings. However, it has the benefit of meaning they’ll learn about each other through the story, as the player also learns gameplay mechanics. Narration and gameplay are always tied together.

An example of this is in how Hugo is vital to overcoming many situations, as his small size gives him access to areas Amicia can’t enter. On the other hand, he can’t stay alone for too long, or he may panic and flee or worse…



In the 14th century, fifteen-year-old Amicia is already seen as an adult, but keeps rejecting responsibilities in favor of a playful childishness. Thrust into a brutal and ruthless world where she’s forced to take care of her little brother, she must now take on responsibilities that any adult would find almost impossible to endure.

Five-year-old Hugo is torn between fear and excitement when discovering the world - he is the last link with a life of innocence that Amicia always cherished. “Hugo sees the last remaining scrap of beauty in a ruthless world,” explains Sébastien Renard. “He brings a bit of stability to Amicia, who is his shield against the raw violence unleashed on them.”

See you next week for more info and exclusive anecdotes about the creative process behind A Plague Tale: Innocence!

https://forums.focus-home.com/topic/7781/roots-of-innocence-linked

 

[Indranys]

Could be a decent game.
Fuel was pretty cool too.
But after playing gameplay heavy games with minimum emoshunal cinematic story, I just can't stand linear narrative driven games with shitload of cutscenes or scripted story events anymore.

 

[Life of the Party]

Xbox One Storytellers: Asobo Studio Talks A Plague Tale: Innocence

It’s hard to match the narrative scope and immersive experience that a compelling story-driven game has over other storytelling mediums, allowing players not only to fall into the world of a well-crafted story but to experience it firsthand. These types of games can empower someone with a new perspective or let us live a double-life as a superhero. Narrative-driven games allow us to become someone we’re not, which is perhaps the biggest reason we enjoy these experiences. Now, with the power of Xbox One X, creators can bring us even closer to their vision. With our Xbox One Storytellers series, we’ll sit down with some of the industry’s greatest creators to talk about the strength of storytelling within games, their inspirations, and how they see the genre growing in the years ahead. Today, we’ll be talking to Lead Game Designer Kevin Choteau and Chief Creative Officer & Co-founder of Asobo Studio David Dedeine.

Is there a secret to crafting a compelling single-player narrative?

An iterative approach is probably the best way to find the magic in a story. It’s something our partners from Pixar taught us: don’t simply say it – write, erase, change, enrich, and repeat.

Do you think single-player experiences create a better sense of immersion than multiplayer experiences?

In our opinion, it’s not “better,” it’s simply different. In a single-player experience, you face introspective reflections whereas multiplayer is usually about relationship, and how to deal with close ties to other players. Sometimes, as in real life, you are more sensitive to something that is self-centered, some other you need to share.

How do you balance your narrative goals with your gameplay goals?

There is no magic recipe. In most cases, in story-driven games, you cannot base the story on the gameplay, it’s gameplay that serves the story. In some games with very special concepts and biases, narration may support gameplays – such as with Portal. The narration makes the game structure convincing and breaks the game’s routine. In the games we’ve created so far, it was blended. The gameplay goals were there to support narration, even if it’s gameplay first. In a story-driven game, if you separate gameplay goals from narrative goals, you create an artificial feeling, and it compromises immersion.

Have things like branching missions and multiple unique endings changed single-player game development?

This has actually always existed: The choose-your-own-adventure books, the first Amstrad games, Dragon’s Lair, etc… This questions every choice you make and creates a feeling of regret, remorse (or satisfaction). In branching storyline games, each choice is permanent, unlike “sandbox” games.

Branching missions, and multiple, unique endings, provide players with a very self-tailored experience, and at the same time involves very different emotions and strikes very different chords. This is not better or worse than a story-driven experience, this is just very different in terms of player involvement and talks to different types of players or at different moments of their gaming lives.

Are there any genres you think story doesn’t matter, or ones you think fit the goal of telling a story better than others?

We have given more and more opportunities and possibilities to tell stories in every genre. For example, FIFA and its career mode and the story of Hunter. In fact, there is no unsuitable genre. Story is not mandatory, but it may work everywhere and sometimes even bring some breath of fresh air to the recipe.

What sort of benefits do more powerful consoles and PCs offer to single-player storytellers?

Some games with minimalist features provide players with unparalleled immersion. It depends on the ambitions and the artistic choices, or the features you want to explore in the game. Raw processing power isn’t what that drives a good story. That’s what you make of it.

Were there any single-player experiences in your gaming life that inspired you to create or really struck a chord with you?

For our latest creation, A Plague Tale: Innocence, we were impressed and inspired by many games among which Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, The Witcher 3, as well as The Last of Us. Brothers for the very special bond between the siblings, that involves no specific dialog – everything happens through gameplay… it’s brilliant! The Witcher 3 for the epic feel, the homogeneity of the story despite the vast quantity of missions and side quests, and the ability to develop/manage the story in the long run. The Last of Us for the authenticity of Ellie and Joel’s relationship, the fatherly love and the finish quality.

Is there a specific game’s single-player level or narrative moment you consider close to a perfect narrative experience?

Definitely the diner scene in the latest Resident Evil (Resident Evil: Biohazard). It was just the perfect way to merge execution, dramatic immersion, and meet a cast of unique characters all at once.

How have single-player/narrative games changed most over the last 10 years?

There are now many media and a great variety in game scopes. This enable game development to work on brand-new, interesting, and rich narrative experiences. It’s so cool and inspiring. Lifeline for instance is a minimalist mobile game that paved the way to many other innovative games. The episodic games like TellTale games with such rich and awesome stories often go beyond what TV offers. And AAA titles are so close now to blockbuster movies… There are an unprecedented variety and possibilities!

How do you see single-player games evolving over the next 10 years?

The emergence of virtual, augmented and more recently mixed teality is just exhilarating. We’ve worked on HoloLens with Microsoft. And with our game Fragments, we’ve discovered brand-new territories in terms of storytelling and immersion. It’s just the beginning of a thrilling journey through gaming, interactivity, customization of experiences and stories!

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2018/07...s-asobo-studio-talks-a-plague-tale-innocence/