Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy is now just a few months from release at the end of August, and we had the opportunity to play a chapter from the game, experiencing Sophia’s prequel story and how Asobo is jumping into a different style of action-adventure gameplay.
With our hands on finished, and thoughts of brutal melee combat, visions of Theseus’ fight to reach the Minotaur, and so much more still swimming in our head, we sat down with Lead Writer Carol Ann Bañuls to chat about this new direction for the game.
TSA – So, where do we begin? There’s far fewer rats in this game. Was that nice to get away from the rats for a while?
Carol Ann – [laughs] Well… I would say there’s still a lot to discover in the game and you only played Chapter 4, so yeah…
TSA –Oh, so Chapter 5 is when all the rats start?
Carol Ann – No, I can’t really say, I can’t spoil anything. But I think it’s different, you know? It’s a part of having a new experience in this series.
TSA – Yeah, I do think it is interesting to take this diversion because like a lot of people already have that attachment to Amicia and Hugo’s story and what to see what the next chapter is from there.
Carol Ann – Actually, you know, we of course, we really talked about doing that, but we felt like Amicia and Hugo’s stories reached a very powerful and emotional conclusion and end point. So I think we wanted to respect that.
I can never say never, but it was time to see things from a different perspective in the universe. So this was a way to expand it and to maybe to bring some new players who are more into action gameplay. We really hope that, because this is a stand along, so you don’t need to apply the two previous game to understand this one.
TSA – Yeah, and I’ll admit that it was a little bit surprising to me how much of a shift the gameplay was taken towards much more direct action adventure. Yeah. And like a lot of people are obviously going to say it uncharted, Tomb Raider… I guess the cheap question to ask is, like, where is obviously inspirations that you were able to draw upon?
Carol Ann – So, Ghost of Tsushima for the combat, for the fighting, definitely. Like you say, Uncharted; we wanted an action-adventure game, third person, and so Uncharted definitely, Tomb Raider, and The Last of Us for the emotional storytelling, because this is in the DNA of A Plague Tale and we really wanted to keep that.
TSA – I had a lot of fun with the combat. It’s very playful (within the brutality of it), and I really enjoyed grappling people, pulling them into spike…
Carol Ann – It’s so satisfying, right?
TSA – And I’ll come back to Theseus for all the kicking in a minute, but having Sophia as the new lead character here, what can you really tell us about her?
Carol Ann – So Sophia is a plunderer who was born and grew up in a gang of plunderers in Venice, led by her father. She learned to fight from a very young age, and I can say without spoiling that she went through some deep and violent experiences when she was young. This is what shaped her as an adult, as we see in Requiem.
She’s cunning, always one step ahead, but I think she’s the kind of character you kind of admire, because she’s’s strong, and you’ll really resonates with her when you see the cracks beneath the armour.
TSA – Yeah, I feel that she’s masking a little bit. There’s also something going on with her hand, which isn’t really talked about in the section we played, and I’m not sure if you can…
Carol Ann – Oh… you noticed that?
TSA – [laughs] Well yeah, I noticed the hand being a completely different colour, and they’re talking about curses a lot!
But OK, we also have Leni as a foil to her, a companion and a friend. It’s always important for these kinds of games to have that second character for the back and forth.
Carol Ann – Definitely, it is really interesting and Leni is a key character in the game because she’s the one pushes Sophia to be vulnerable. She’s definitely important to her and to us in the game.
TSA – Let’s talk a bit about the mythology that you’re exploring here with Theseus and the MInotaur. I’ve literally just been playing another game with this myth, so it’s quite fresh in my mind, and that makes me think about how difficult it is to find legends that haven’t really explored so deeply, and then also put your own spin on things so you can always put this.
Carol Ann – This is what I was going to say, because we definitely puts our own interpretation of the myth. […]
There was one point in the game’s production where we said, OK, we want to talk about the island of the Minotaur, but are we going to show that through runes and frescos? Or are you going to experience it? So it was really cool for us to propose an immersive experience and to be Theseus.
TSA – Was there any thought, as you have these two different periods, about differentiating the level of brutality between the ages? It’s easy to picture ancient history and cultures as being more savage – which isn’t particularly true, from what we see around the world.
Carol Ann – This is an interesting question. We worked with historian on this, so we asked ourselves this question, and I think we like the parallels between the two eras and the violence. The Minotaur actually represents violence, instinct, loss of control, so I think it was interesting to see that Sofia has journey is really resonating, echoing with Theseus. So in terms of violence, yeah, you find find it in both sides of the journey.
Thanks to Carol Ann for chatting to us about Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy. We had a great time playing a chapter from the game, which you can read all about here. Resonance will launch for PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC on 27th August.
