Game library subscriptions are an excellent convenience offered by modern console developers and PC game distributors. For a monthly fee, PlayStation and Xbox fans alike can get access to any number of quality games. One game that's cropped up on a lot of these lists lately is A Plague Tale: Innocence, the multifaceted survival-horror-action-adventure title released by Asobo Studio in 2019. A Plague Tale: Innocence tells the story of Amicia and Hugo, two young siblings living in medieval France during the onset of the Black Plague. Between the oncoming plague and tensions between France and England, Amicia and Hugo are thrust into a struggle for survival.
A Plague Tale: Innocence earned praise from critics and fans alike, earning quite a few awards and nominations in the months following its release. Many players agreed that its colorful blend of game genres did well to carry the strong narrative at the heart of the game. Although A Plague Tale: Innocence has already seen pretty impressive sales, passing 1 million copies last year, there's no harm in it being available across various game subscription services. In fact, that availability will probably be a big boon to the Plague Tale brand, as Asobo Games is working on a sequel.
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A Plague Tale: Innocence really has made the rounds on subscription services lately. It first cropped up on Xbox Game Pass in 2020 and stayed there. Then, Sony announced that A Plague Tale: Innocence would come to PS Plus, vastly expanding its availability. Now, Epic Games has revealed that Innocence will be available for free through its game browser as well, meaning Innocence is readily available for free on nearly every major gaming platform thanks to a broad range of services. Asobo Games and Innocence's publisher Focus Home Interactive are probably pushing these free versions of the game to build as much interest in possible for A Plague Tale: Requiem, the Innocence sequel announced during E3 2021.
This is definitely a clever way to expand the franchise's fanbase. By making the first game available for free wherever it can, Asobo is casting the widest net possible in an attempt to fish up more Plague Tale fans. The more players develop an interest in the franchise, the more potential buyers there are for the sequel. A Plague Tale's relationship with these services is especially important when one considers that Requiem will launch on Xbox Game Pass. Asobo is establishing a relationship between the Plague Tale brand and these services while specifically enticing Xbox users to keep an eye on the franchise.
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Information about the game is a little scarce, but A Plague Tale: Requiem looks poised to keep building on the narrative threads and mechanics that made the first game successful. Teasers for the game indicate that Amicia and Hugo have a curse to contend with as they keep struggling to survive the plague and the literal tides of rats that come with it. Hopefully Asobo will keep releasing information about the game throughout the latter half of 2021 before the game releases in 2022. In the meantime, A Plague Tale: Innocence's widespread availability goes a long way to support the sequel.
In a way, Asobo's use of subscription services and PC game distributors to hold up the Plague Tale IP shows how valuable and influential these services are. They can make tons of games available to fans for a very reasonable price. When studios can get more fans for their franchises, and those fans can play more of the games they're interested in, everybody wins. The game industry wouldn't be the same without Xbox Game Pass, PS Plus, and every comparable service. Hopefully next year Asobo gets rewarded for spreading the word about A Plague Tale so fervently.
A Plague Tale: Innocence is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. A Plague Tale: Requiem releases in 2022 for PC, PS5, Switch (Cloud play), and Xbox Series X/S.