Weak does not mean helpless, however. Amicia carries a sling is capable of flinging rocks at a soldier who, for a brief moment, forgot to put on their helmet. It can interact with the world in a variety of ways, too, from breaking locks to causing a convenient noise to distract a guard. Over time, she learns all manner of alchemic tricks, letting her conjure potions to both create and put out fire (useful for dealing with rats, whose primary fear is fire), put enemies to sleep, trick rats into running to a specific location, and more. It quickly becomes a versatile toolset.

You, like me, might start envisioning a crafty stealth game where the game drops you into open-ended locations where said toolset allows the player to engage with situations in a variety of ways. What you quickly discover is A Plague Tale is not this game. It’s more akin to playing a Telltale adventure game with button prompts for action moments. Almost universally, every situation has a comically obvious solution, usually related to whatever item the game last unlocked for you, or whatever object is brightly shining in front of you, begging to be interacted with. There are upgrades, but they are wholly unnecessary. You can try different solutions to a problem, but you’re wasting creative energy that could be used on literally anything else in your life. A Plague Tale does not demand much from the player, and the faster you set expectations accordingly, the better. Which isn’t to say these parts of the game outright bad, they’re perfunctory—a brief, interactive set piece in-between story beats.