PARIS: After producing acclaimed games in which players shepherd two children through the Black Death in the Middle Ages, French studio Asobo promises more combat and action in medieval Greece with their new A Plague Tale title.
Set for release on August 27 for PCs, the Xbox Series and PlayStation 5, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy sets its story several years before the events of the first two games.
Instead of former protagonists Amicia and Hugo, who dodged the Inquisition through rat-infested cities, Resonance follows the adventures of Sophia, a pirate with a heart of gold introduced in the previous release, Requiem.
The series' 2019 kick-off, A Plague Tale: Innocence, was nominated for best narrative at the Game Awards – the industry's equivalent of the Oscars – and was named best game in 2020 at France's Pegasus awards.
The follow-up Requiem has won over more than three million players.
"We were emotionally worn out" after Requiem, Asobo producer Eric Chort told AFP, "so we've kind of drawn a line under a part of this story."
More action
The new episode is a clear change of pace, with "the aim of really breaking away to go looking for something else, something really different", said Chort, who has worked on the series from the start.
Sophia's medieval Greece still bears references to the myths of the ancient world, including the Minotaur, and alternates with sequences set in the Minoan civilisation that predates the more familiar classical period.
The studio has not only altered the visuals, though, also showing off significant changes to the gameplay.
"Sophia is a pillager: she travels a lot by boat, so she's a much more dynamic personality than Amicia was," Chort said.
"And the biggest novelty is the swordfighting," he added.
That expansion to the game world was a "major challenge" of a kind the Bordeaux-based studio had not previously faced.
Asobo was founded in 2002, making ends meet with commission work until it made its name with A Plague Tale.
It also gained public recognition with its work for Microsoft on the American software giant's Flight Simulator, which won the 2020 Game Award for best simulator or strategy game.
Rare growth
Asobo has not revealed how much it cost to develop Resonance, saying only that it was "in line" with the previous game and far short of the hundreds of millions of dollars studios can sink into blockbuster "AAA" titles.
Its team working on the series grew to 80 people in the three years it took to build the new title.
Such growth has become rare in a games sector where the news is more often of layoffs and even total closures of studios.
"In this context, we know we're lucky," Chort said.
But the team feels keenly the troubles of the wider industry.
"We have that stress and that fear across Asobo, whether among management or employees... we feel it too in our relationships with publishers," Chort said.
Asobo has kept its distance for now from using generative artificial intelligence in developing its games, though others in the industry have hailed the technology's possibilities for tasks like generating 3D assets for virtual worlds or more natural-seeming conversations with characters.
"We're afraid that it will undermine creativity, smooth everything out and in the end leave everything feeling the same," Chort said.
Closer to home, inspiration has come from last year's surprise French hit Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, crowned Game of the Year at 2025's Game Awards.
"It proved that we're on the right track as well, that there's room for different types of games," Chort said. – AFP
