Reviews for Asobo Studio's latest title, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, have arrived, revealing a significant departure from the stealth-action gameplay that defined its predecessors. While A Plague Tale: Requiem earned widespread acclaim and a Game of the Year nomination in 2022, the prequel's shift towards treasure-hunting and combat has garnered more lukewarm responses from critics. Currently, Resonance holds a 79 on Metacritic and an 85 on OpenCritic, placing it slightly below the scores of both Requiem (82) and Innocence (81).
The change in genre is stark, with Resonance trading the series' signature rat-infested stealth for a more action-oriented treasure-hunting experience. Game Informer lauded this pivot in an 8.5/10 review, with critic Kyle Hilliard praising the game's characters, particularly the protagonist Sophia. Hilliard found Sophia to be a compelling hero and appreciated the strong performances that effectively conveyed the emotional weight of her adventure. "She is strong, smart, and like many of the pirates in her community, I questioned why she wasn’t already in charge," Hilliard wrote. "Sophia’s relationships are established well and quickly, and it makes the stakes of her dangerous adventure appropriately threatening. The performances in the game are also excellent, effective in both the dramatic moments and the quiet conversational ones."
However, major outlets offered less enthusiastic assessments. IGN's Travis Northup awarded the game a 6/10, acknowledging Asobo Studio's effort to innovate but expressing disappointment with the move away from stealth mechanics. Northup found the combat system to be shallow and repetitive, stating, "The shift from stealth to all-out combat isn’t the most seamless transition – not exactly bad, but consistently shallow and sometimes sloppy, with standard light and heavy attacks, a kick to break your opponent’s guard, and just a handful of bad guys with two or three different attacks to learn." He further noted that the combat's lack of depth made the time spent in arenas feel monotonous between puzzles.
Eurogamer's Chris Schilling shared similar reservations, though his critique focused on the game's narrative tone. While finding the customizable action and exploration elements satisfactory, Schilling felt the storytelling was excessively grim. "Even as it tries to mix things up, though, Asobo makes the same mistake as it did in Requiem and ladles on the trauma in great heaping portions," Schilling wrote in a three-star review. He contrasted this with the earlier titles, where grimness felt pitiless or darkly comic, whereas in Resonance, it devolved into "abject misery."
Polygon's own assessment echoed these mixed feelings. While appreciating the world design and the cast's strong performances, the action was described as "deeply boring." The consensus suggests that while Resonance may appeal to players who enjoyed the cinematic presentation of the previous Plague Tale games, it represents a fundamentally different experience that struggles to connect with the established series identity. The game's departure from its stealth roots appears to be the primary point of contention among reviewers.
