I tested 3 hours of Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy and saw something I never expected

One of the most exciting announcements during the Xbox Games Showcase held on June 7 during the Summer Game Fest weekend included a trailer and release date for Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, the third game in the Plague Tale series. Developed by Asobo and published by Focus Entertainment, Resonance marks a significant change in tone and style for the series. It abandons the stealth gameplay elements that made the Plague Tale games stand out and fully embraces its action-adventure side, while still maintaining puzzles and platforming as key components of the game experience.

Polygon had a chance to try a beta version of the game, including the tutorial and one full chapter, “Abyss,” during a press event held by Focus in May. Set in the year 1333 on a mysterious island near Crete, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy lets players take control of Sophia, a secondary character from A Plague Tale: Requiem, the second game in the series. Resonance explores Sophia’s past before she met the de Rune siblings, as she flees the gang of pirate plunderers she was raised in to follow the dreamlike visions leading her to Minotaur Island and its ancient secrets.

Combat sits at the center of Resonance’s gameplay. Sophia will often face groups of enemies with different weapons, protections, and attack patterns. She only has three hit points, but enemies also go down quickly, so combat feels frantic and deadly. Killing an enemy will restore one hit point, allowing players to take some hits in the fights. Parrying is key to the system, as it’s needed to break the defence of all except the most basic opponents. Sophia can also dodge, kick to break defensive postures, and use a grappling hook to pull enemies closer — which is used to bring down archers from their elevated positions. One nifty feature is that you can pick up and throw items at enemies to stun them momentarily.

Sophia fights with a sword and a knife, both of which can be upgraded during the game by finding more powerful ones. Players will also be able to unlock more upgrades through a combat-oriented skills system. Overall, combat feels really fluid, but also a bit repetitive after you get the hang of it.

GIF: Focus Entertainment

Platforming sequences let players explore Minotaur’s Island as Sophia moves closer to the mystery at the center of it. She and her smuggler friend Leni are driven by legends, corroborated by Sophia’s vision, of a great treasure that they want to use to earn their freedom and buy a boat (which I assume is the Rascasse seen in A Plague Tale: Requiem) to start their own smuggling business. However, deadly traps are not the only thing standing in their way: They are also pursued by the Venetian army, which is trying to get to the treasure first.

These exploration sequences highlight the meticulous work Asobo has done on this game's environment. As with the previousPlague Tale games, the studio worked with historians to ensure the game's world is vibrant and as accurate as possible. Asobo senior producer Eric Chort explained to Polygon that this posed new challenges compared to previous titles in the series. The Minoan civilization did not leave a lot of traces behind that could guide the artistic direction of the game. The developers thus had to look at other civilizations for reference, but the result is nothing to scoff at. I spent a decent amount of time during my playthrough just staring at the murals on the walls of the ruins that Sophia was parkour-ing through, and the buildings, structures, and decorations give you the feeling of having stepped into a fantasy-tinged Homeric world — even more so in sequences taking place in the Minoan era.

Image: Asobo

Puzzles make for the third and final element of Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy’s gameplay. They revolve around a contraption Sophia owns that reflects light to illuminate otherwise invisible clues and symbols. There is also a notebook that Sophia can consult to look for more clues and hints on how to bypass the traps infesting the ruins. Leni will also play a role, helping you get through some puzzles that require collaboration. She acts autonomously, similarly to Hugo in the first two Plague Tale games. In the chapter of the game I played through, the use of light led to some interesting interactions with the environment, but became repetitive after a while. The puzzles are not particularly challenging either. Overall, these sections felt like breaks between fights and exploration, rather than standing on their own as the impressive puzzle and stealth sequences in A Plague Tale: Innocence did.

The game alternates Sophia’s “present” with sequences set in the Minoan era, during which players take control of an ancient hero with a mysterious connection to Sophia. The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur is obviously at the core of this story, but this won’t necessarily be a familiar tale. Asobo lead writer Carol Ann Bañuls told Polygon that this is an original take on the classic tale, shaping the story in a completely different direction. Sophia is still at the center of the game as a woman who grew up in a violent environment, forced to keep her feelings and vulnerability hidden, and now fighting to understand her roots.

Fans of the Plague Tale series will likely have a hard time reconciling this new entry with its predecessors. Gone is the high-tension stealth gameplay that forced players to avoid hordes of ravenous rats in plague-stricken Europe. However, a glimpse of horror is still present in Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy thanks to the Minotaur, an invisible presence that haunts the halls and corridors of the ruins that Sophia is exploring.

Through excellent use of the environment and chilling sound effects, the non-presence of the Minotaur adds an element of creepy tension that ties this game to the series' horror roots. Only the full game will tell us if that’s enough to balance Resonance's action-heavy nature.

Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy will be released on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X on August 27.

Disclosure: This article is based on a preview event hosted by Dotemu in Paris, France, from April 28-30. Dotemu provided Polygon’s travel and accommodations for the event. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.