We've spent the past little while amidst an epidemic. And no, we don't (wholly) mean the local political attack ads running at the moment. Rather, we've been avoiding the Inquisition, rats and the "bite" itself in Asobo Studio's A Plague Tale: Innocence for review purposes. Now, it might be time to watch some comedy and lie down.

There aren't a lot of games that push this level of emotional endurance at this level of visual and audio quality, and we'll be keeping our eye on this studio moving forward. And while it has myriad hang ups, there is something unique here. Check out a snippet from our review:

There’s a fitting metaphor tied heavily to any screens or footage you see of Amicia holding Hugo’s hand. While warming and contextually justifiable on a narrative level, the game itself is a super-heavy hand-holding experience for the player. Hard-fail scenarios come in thick and fast, and often there’s only one way to progress your movement through the game’s 18 chapters. Combat, which is largely lite-on, is clunky and frustrating. Amicia’s only tools are her sling and variable ammunition you eventually learn to craft. She walks on by lost or discarded weapons, shields and more, throughout her journey. But it’s in the sling we -- and her -- trust, and it’s one of the game’s biggest failings. Everything we see (for the most part) sells the setting and period, and in the wake of the situation that sees our hero and her little brother pushing forward through corpses, rat nests and battlefields caked in bloodied fallen, with various other weapons available for pillaging, that she wouldn’t just even pick up a dagger is detrimental to the experience. In fact, there are numerous scenarios where you have enemies running at you where aiming your sling has to be specifically at their head in order to stop them. Fail to do so and… well, hard fail.

Click here for our A Plague Tale: Innocence review.