Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy Hands-On Preview – Charting A New Course
Platform:
PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Publisher:
Focus Entertainment
Developer:
Asobo Studio
Release:
Rating:
Mature
Rats, exceptional emotional storytelling, tense stealth, and more rats: these are the elements that come to mind when I think of A Plague Tale. Watching the young protagonists Amicia and Hugo de Rune endure unimaginable hardships to combat a supernatural rat scourge in A Plague Tale: Innocence in 2019 and its 2022 sequel, A Plague Tale: Requiem, captivated me, and the series has become one of my favorites of the modern era. Although Requiem’s conclusion left some tantalizing narrative possibilities for the future, I doubt anyone expected a follow-up would take players to the past and center on that game’s standout companion, Sophia.
The fierce smuggler became an invaluable ally to Amicia and Hugo and now stars in her own prequel adventure, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy. Set in 1333, 15 years before Requiem’s events, on the Greek island of Crete, it stars a younger Sophia on a quest to a mythical island, trading sneaking and slingshots for sword duels and tomb raiding. The Greek myth of the Minotaur also plays an unexpected but intriguing role. Eager to get my hands on it, I traveled to Paris, France, to play the entirety of Resonance’s fourth chapter and walked away extremely impressed with how well the franchise’s first foray into the action genre is shaping up.
The Right Fit
After launching Requiem, series developer Asobo Studio wanted its next adventure to give fans a new experience while also expanding its universe. The team also needed a break from telling another overwhelmingly grim narrative. “When we finished Requiem, we’re like, okay, it was a pretty huge game, emotionally very exhausting because of the story,” creative director Eric Chort says. “It was really strong and really hard for us emotionally. So we’re like, okay, perhaps we make a break with Amicia in this hard story, but we still love Plague. So what can we do with that?”
Asobo batted ideas around before realizing it wanted to create an experience more steeped in action-adventure, à la Tomb Raider and Uncharted, as a fresh challenge. The question became how to link this new game while reinventing everything else. It found its answer in Sophia, Requiem’s popular companion, whose backstory was largely a mystery. As a smuggler and a sailor, she’s fierce, well-traveled, clever, and more than capable in a fight; these traits made her the perfect character to design new gameplay systems around while opening up storytelling possibilities. After all, Sophia didn’t gain these skills overnight. Sophia also told Amicia that she had no desire to kill again, a seemingly throwaway line that Chort says offered fertile narrative ground to sew; if she used to kill, just how good was she at taking lives, and why did she stop?
According to lead writer Carol-Ann Bañuls, the Sophia we meet in Resonance remains a cunning force but lacks the inner calm she has in Requiem. “So this is the kind of character you admire for her strength, but who really resonates in you when you start to see the cracks beneath the armor,” Bañuls tells me when I ask how this Sophia differs from her older self. “So this is the difference, because in Requiem, she’s already really in control of her emotions […] she knows already her heart. You can feel she went through some traumas, but you don’t know yet what it was because it’s 15 years before.”
Bañuls assures me this is still A Plague Tale despite Resonance’s swashbuckling tone. The weighty, emotional storytelling fans expect of the series will remain intact, and Sophia will likely be put through the wringer, mentally and physically. “We have to go dark at some point,” Bañuls teases.
A Sharper Edge
Chapter 4: To Hell it Runs opens with Sophia, joined by a comrade named Leni, already on the legendary Minotaur’s Island, the game’s primary and singular setting, and they find themselves at the precipice of an ancient temple. The pair exchange banter about surviving a devastating raid by Venetian forces on their plunderers’ gang, and as my demo progresses, it’s clear these two share a close relationship. Chort tells me Leni is one of several companions who will assist Sophia at various points in her journey.
The staircase leading to the temple has long since collapsed, so I need to find another route. I’m prompted to open Sophia’s journal, which, like Nathan Drake before her, allows her to sketch important clues and other visual hints. A page displaying the temple door has a doodle of a tree with a cloth hanging from one of its branches. I search around and see this tree at the top of a small hill. A quick look reveals a small side path that takes me up to the tree, offering a basic example of how important the journal will be for proceeding when stuck.
As we shimmy over a cliff above the door, I hear the boom of nearby cannonfire.
”Dammit, they’re already here,” Sophia says.
“Already?” an incredulous Leni replies.
“They” refers to the Venetian soldiers who have seemingly followed the pair to this island and are just as eager to break into this temple to plunder its secrets. Sure enough, we reach a perch above the door and spot a group of soldiers slamming a battering ram into the colossal doors. To reach the other side without being seen, Sophia must use one of her primary tools, a grapple hook, to swing from the branch to, in theory, the temple above the soldiers. I say “in theory” because the branch snaps, causing her to slide down the sloping earth, jumping right into the fray of the surprised soldiers in a sequence that feels very Uncharted-coded. Surrounded, she has no choice but to fight her way out.
Sophia battles with a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. Players can find other swords by exploring. Each sword offers a unique perk; the falchion deals bonus damage after a successful critical strike, while the kopis lets the last hit in a combo deal stun damage. You can unlock up to seven swords, and they can be missed, making them purely optional. Chort confirms Sophia will never use any other type of weapon, and that’s just fine, because the combat is fantastic as is.
Sophia cuts down foes with three-hit melee attacks, and she can block, dodge, and, most importantly, parry incoming offense. Parrying feels great, and nailing three consecutively fills a stagger meter below the enemy’s health bar; once full, the target becomes open to attack. Pressing and holding the attack button unleashes a charged attack using Sophia’s dagger that can stun certain targets and trigger a violent execution if their health is low enough. Her grappling hook is a weapon, as well, used to bind and yank a target towards her. Sophia can also kick enemies to break their guard, but I much prefer to channel my inner Leonidas and kick them off ledges to send them plummeting to a hilarious demise. If you ask me how many times I killed a foe in this way, the answer is “yes.”
Combat feels snappy, parries are deliciously weighty and impactful, but what I’m most impressed by are the dynamic interactions. Foes can be knocked into each other to create realistic collisions, which can also stagger them. I make heavy use of this to manage the often large mobs, kicking one foe into a group to send them stumbling over like bowling pins. Knocking foes into solid surfaces like walls has the same effect, and contextual executions mean Sophia has unique kill animations depending on how she and the enemy are positioned. Leni and other companions who join Sophia during her journey also lend a hand in battles.
Combat’s quality is even more impressive given that Resonance is Asobo’s first action game. The previous Plague Tale games are stealth-forward experiences, so Chort says the team played many action games to figure out how to approach Resonance’s action, ranging from superhero fare like Marvel’s Spider-Man and the Batman: Arkham series, to more challenging titles like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Sifu. The team eventually found its blueprint in a modern PlayStation classic.
“…we started to find our way with Ghost of Tsushima,” Chort says. “So, combat against a group of people, dodging, countering, the fact [that] it’s pretty realistic in terms of animation and violence, of what is a samurai. So we are like, ‘Okay, so for us, what is being a plunderer? So what is Sophia?’ So she’s agile, she’s tricky, she’s visceral, violent. So this is the basics. And then, as we had the basics with Sofia, then our reference with Ghost of Tsushima, we iterated a lot.”
Tomb Raiding
Outside of combat, exploring the temple requires solving several cleverly designed environmental puzzles in a row. Chort tells me that the ratio of puzzle-solving to combat is evenly split in Resonance, and several of the riddles I tackle require using a mysterious orb Sophia carries. The true significance of this artifact is being kept under wraps, but when exposed to sunlight, it emits a glow revealing hidden markings in the environment.
In one hallway, I hold up the orb to illuminate hidden ink marking the spiked pressure plates I can step on safely in a room filled with them. Another riddle requires using the orb to reveal a hidden maze on the floor; I carefully follow its paths to various exits to find the corresponding symbols at their ends, which are tied to an elaborate door lock in a way I won’t spoil. I unravel several ancient contraptions in a row, each leading Sophia and Leni deeper into the temple. When I’m not sure how to proceed, hitting up on the d-pad asks Sophia’s companion for hints, which start as vague and layer more instructions with each subsequent inquiry.
Exploring can also uncover collectible (but non-functional) relics from the present and the past. You can also find Resonance Points, skill points used to unlock abilities from a tree. You earn Resonance points in greater quantities by fighting, though you find them in singular units lying around. Speaking of exploration, Chort confirms Resonance is not an open-world game, but instead a more directed experience similar in scope to the last two games.
Later in the chapter, I open one particularly grand door and trigger a playable flashback set centuries prior. I’m in a past version of the same room, surrounded by dozens of ancient Minoan soldiers. However, I now control Theseus, the legendary Greek hero famous for slaying the Minotaur, in a fiery battle ritual in a room lined with torches. After chanting figures praise the Minotaur, a ritualistic fight breaks out amongst the soldiers.
These mysterious visions Sophia experiences occur throughout the adventure, and they’re a primary reason for why she’s come to Minotaur Island in the first place. Neither Chort nor Bañuls wants to reveal much about the plot implications of these segments, but the latter does discuss the myth’s thematic significance to the overall narrative.
“The Minotaur symbolizes violence, instinct, and loss of control,” Bañuls explains. “And with Sophia, it was the perfect character to do that, because she really struggled to be vulnerable with people in her life. So we really got deep in this. And I could maybe tell you a line we have in the game. It’s ‘Monsters hide, sometimes behind familiar faces.’ And I think it can [be a] résumé [for] the game.”
Armed with a sword as Theseus, I slaughter anyone in reach, kicking more foes into a big hole in the center, 300-style. I’m then prompted to unleash a Focus Attack, a big sweeping assault activated by simultaneously pressing two attack buttons after a meter fills (done by landing successful strikes). When this short sequence ends and I regain control of Sophia, she now has the ability to perform the Focus Attack in her time.
One would assume Sophia will learn other combat abilities in this manner, but a “perhaps” is all I can get out of Chort when I ask if that’s the case. Asobo seems especially secretive about the Theseus segments, making me all the more fascinated to know how this iconic myth weaves into Sophia’s journey.
All In The Name
One huge element of A Plague Tale appears notably absent from Resonance: rats. Bañuls is hesitant to say much when I ask if the dreaded Macula curse that plagued Amicia and Hugo has any presence in this prequel. She does clarify that the rats are more closely linked to the plague that befell France during the historical period in which the previous games take place and, thus, have no ties to the myth of the Minotaur. However, she does tease that the island hides other secrets that may be just as otherworldly.
I conclude my interviews with the developers with one question: Why is the game called Resonance? Chort is, again, hesitant to divulge much but offers that “It’s a lot about the story and the background of Sophia and what you discover on the island; her past, what she has in mind, what sort of things that she’s feeling from her childhood, and that makes her come to this island. So I can’t say a lot about that, but yeah, definitely, it’s what’s happening on the island that has a real sense with the name Resonance.”
“What I like about the word resonance [is that] it has two significations,” Bañuls explains. “It’s the way the sound resonates in the place or in an object. And there is definitely something about a call for Sophia. The island is calling her in some way. And resonance also means how you go through things, how you feel things, how it resonates in you. So it was the perfect name to have all the [meanings] in it, and I think it makes sense now.”
I’m eager to learn the meaning of the name and much more once Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy arrives later this year. With the Uncharted series on ice and Tomb Raider only now making its comeback after a lengthy hiatus, Sophia’s solo outing is one to keep an eye on for those who have missed this flavor of third-person action-adventure games. If the rest of the game maintains the high quality of this gameplay slice, Resonance may be the entry that finally earns this perhaps underappreciated franchise more widespread love.
