Welcome back to our devblog series! We’re unveiling a wealth of details and info about the making of A Plague Tale: Innocence, Asobo Studio’s upcoming adventure game coming 2019 to PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. Today, we’re excited to share more info about a “protagonist” that you can’t miss in our game: the rats!

Let’s welcome lead gameplay programmer Cyril Doillon to cover the creation of the rats in A Plague Tale: Innocence, as well as the many challenges the team had to face during development.


Our initial objective was to display the maximum number of rats while having a good technical optimisation for the game. The trick is to display as much detail as possible for the rats closest to the player, while decreasing that level of detail the further away they are. It’s a huge challenge of optimisation.



The hundred closest rats to the player are as “demanding” (requiring processor power) as the two thousands behind. We have four levels of details:

• The fully animated and detailed rats very close to the player
  
• The next one hundred rats slightly less detailed
  
• A third layer of rats sharing the same animation loop, further away
  
• A last layer for the rats in the background, who are a non animated mesh

We use multi-threading at its maximum to have all of that running smoothly. Several cores in the processor are working at the same time, additionally to the AI.

Lead Gameplay Programmer Cyril Doillon

Regarding the light and its impact on the rats, we can’t manage each rat individually if we want them to react to the characters moving with a light source. We merge as much as possible the calculations of the rats for their movement and reaction to light. They all share a basic behaviour, giving us this fluid “horde” effect while still maintaining good performance.

That’s how we manage to have 5,000 visible rats in the screen. The rats behind Amicia aren’t displayed, but they’re still generated, meaning that the processor handles more than 10,000 rats at the same time.



The result feels very organic, almost as a liquid. But we didn’t design the rats as a liquid, it comes naturally from their horde behaviour. Note that scientists have noticed in the past that the movement of a crowd share some similarities with liquid behaviour, meaning it makes sense for our rats as well!

We didn’t find a lot of references to rats in video games. Existing crowd management solutions were not adapted to what we wanted to perform in A Plague Tale. Perhaps some scenes from Uncharted 3 with spiders but it was very occasional in a specific level and not as intense and grounded as we planned with our rats.



We also watched movies like The Mummy or Indiana Jones and their insects, like those in the catacombs in Venice. Generally though, there is little fictional media that achieves what we have in mind and most of our studies were focused on real life: it’s fascinating to study real rat colonies, the way they organize and how they behave all together.

We’ve also been surprised by some of the player reactions. Some get scared the first time they see the rats and stand up, others smile. We didn’t really anticipate the impact the rats could have on some players. It was really visceral.

See you soon for more behind-the-scenes information and anecdotes about the creative process behind A Plague Tale: Innocence!

A Plague Tale: Innocence releases in 2019 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/752590/A_Plague_Tale_Innocence/

Welcome back to our devblog series! We’re unveiling a wealth of details and info about the making of A Plague Tale: Innocence, Asobo Studio’s upcoming adventure game coming 2019 to PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. Today, we’re excited to share more info about a “protagonist” that you can’t miss in our game: the rats!

Let’s welcome narrative designer Sébastien Renard to cover the creation of the rats in A Plague Tale: Innocence, as well as the many challenges the team had to face during development.


Our original intention was to tell the story of two kids confronted with something that will change them forever. It was the actual starting point. The medieval setting asserted itself naturally: it’s dramatic but exotic/unfamiliar, it’s brutal and crude.

Here at Asobo, in Bordeaux, France, we are physically surrounded by the remains and the scars of this period. It was the perfect setting in fact: the war, the tough unsophisticated life... it’s an emblematic historical period that gives us plenty of conflict and strong material to work with.



The idea of epidemic events based on the medieval beliefs came up with the Black Plague contemporaneous context. Exploring this with innocent children like Hugo and Amicia was emotional and strong. It was the kind of journey we were ready to tell. Being overwhelmed by thousands of rats was a technical challenge but it was freaking awesome and visceral!


We’ve quickly gone from a bunch of tiny rats to a massive living entity threatening Amicia and Hugo! The beginning of A Plague Tale: Innocence takes place in the autumn of 1348, almost exactly the moment when the epidemic reached the South-West of France.

Sébastien Renard - Narrative Designer

We’ve quickly gone to a massive living entity threatening Amicia and Hugo because we immediately saw how we could use them both in terms of gameplay mechanics and narrative twist. Visually, it has a terrifying impact even on adults. In terms of narration it was also something we could use to raise the tension gradually and with a powerful lore behind.

The rats arrive in the game as if they had always been there, underground. The earth suddenly opens its gates and releases the terror. It’s a similar narrative development to that of Alien or Jaws: everyone knows the threat, but the tension is about when it will be unleashed.

The rats are a natural force colonising the world and breaking the balance. As a blind threat, they attack both the protagonists and the Inquisition, allowing players to turn them against their enemies.


The rats are a threat at the beginning of the game, or at least the characters see them like this. An underground threat invading the world around them that seems to be, after the initial shock of the first encounter, a familiar terror. One they can understand how to fight and escape. Rats fear the light, they stay in dark corners and night is their domain.



The gameplay relies on the alchemy between these various elements: how to push back the rats through fire and lights and use them to counter other threats while staying careful as they can still eat you in the blink of an eye!


We looked for a lot of references before we realised it hadn’t been documented that much. Rats are part of the european background, especially because of the plague, with which they’ve always been associated. They’re always seen as a threat in western societies. However, in Indian culture for example, they’re seen more positively. But they are always considered as smart animals, fast learners, and with a frightening team effectiveness.

For the visual sources, we did not find many references even in the film industry. Some movies managed to use rats or other vermins as “waves” and hordes, but we wanted to explore our own vision. Something like a fluid, a force that is out of control, unnatural but grounded - not magic.



There has been plenty of funny things that we’ve come across throughout development. Or at least, they now make me smile, but it was far less fun for the programmer team in charge of fixing them. I’ve recorded a video of a group of rats playing animations by standing on their legs and looking from left to right. It looked like a choir!

I believe we’ve designed a credible entity that is one of the main characters in our tale, and I’m really proud of what our team has achieved.

See you soon for more behind-the-scenes information and anecdotes about the creative process behind A Plague Tale: Innocence!

A Plague Tale: Innocence releases in 2019 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/752590/A_Plague_Tale_Innocence/

Welcome back to our devblog series! We’re unveiling a wealth of details and info about the making of A Plague Tale: Innocence, Asobo Studio’s upcoming adventure game coming 2019 to PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. Today, we’re excited to share more info about a “protagonist” that you can’t miss in our game: the rats!

Let’s welcome game director Kevin Choteau who will cover the creation of the rats in A Plague Tale: Innocence, as well as the many challenges the team had to face during development.

Origins

The rats stemmed from our will to tell a story about two children facing the cruelty of the world. We looked for a setting that offered the best possible frame and context for a story about fragility and innocence.



The Middle Ages (1348) was perfect for what we were looking for. This is the time of the Black Death, the Hundred Years' War, the Inquisition, the “routiers” (mercenary soldiers terrorising the French countryside) and other dark events.

The Black Death was the most interesting element to explore, as a common belief is that it was spread largely by rats. Using the rats is a great way to give a body to an immaterial, invisible disease, and to create gameplay mechanics around it.

The Representation of the Rats

Rats eat everything. It’s a notion that players get pretty quickly. Rats trigger common and old fears, they hide in the dark and move in massive hordes. It’s the quantity that makes the threat tangible.


Kevin Choteau - Game Director

It’s also the credibility of their behaviour that gives this effect. They’re always aggressive towards the characters and the scale between rats and children reinforces the idea of powerlessness - even the adults run away.

We slowly introduce the rats to the player, building a legend around them and making the first encounter even more memorable. We’ve worked a lot on the staging and directing of this scene throughout the development process to strongly mark players with it. Various moments further in the game maintain the threat at its maximum.

Interactions between the Rats and Protagonists

Near the start of A Plague Tale: Innocence, the rats are a constant direct threat our heroes have to face. Later, Amicia will learn to use them at her advantage to escape from other threats. This was planned from the beginning, and is the basis of our triptych between light, humans and rats, as well as the interaction between these three elements.

The gameplay relies on the alchemy between these various elements: how to push back the rats through fire and lights and use them to counter other threats while staying careful as they can still eat you in the blink of an eye!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8rnUzEnpoA

The inspiration for the rats in A Plague Tale: Innocence

We really struggled to find interesting source materials for the rats. We’ve watched a lot of wildlife documentary about their life and how they react when they’re flushed out.

Rats are a very smart species with fascinating and cruel organisational systems. It’s pretty unique, and often used to convey an image of parasite over brute strength.



See you soon for more behind-the-scenes information and anecdotes about the creative process behind A Plague Tale: Innocence!

A Plague Tale: Innocence releases in 2019 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/752590/A_Plague_Tale_Innocence/

We're excited to share today new screenshots of A Plague Tale: Innocence, our adventure game coming to PS4, Xbox One & PC next year!

The team at Asobo Studio pushed the limit to create a gorgeous, evocative world to explore through your adventure with Amicia and Hugo.

Rats swarm and chaos descends over medieval France as war rages. Young siblings Amicia and Hugo must make their way through the desolate and plague-ridden landscapes as they search for shelter.

Today’s brand new screenshots showcase just how beautiful and varied a world Asobo have built for their adventure, and the incredible characters created to explore it.



As game development veterans, Asobo have used their own engine to push current generation hardware as far as possible with A Plague Tale: Innocence. Environments range through medieval castles and villages, catacombs, wasteland battlefields, and verdant forests - each with its own unique look and feel.

Characters will react with real emotion to the situations around them, be it Hugo’s fear at his unfamiliar surroundings or the determination of Amicia to save her little brother.



A Plague Tale: Innocence tells a grim and emotional story, sending us on a journey through medieval France, with gameplay blending adventure, action, and stealth, supported by a compelling, moving story.

Follow Amicia and her little brother Hugo, trying to survive a harsh, brutal world plagued by the Black Death. On the run from the Inquisition, and surrounded by the unnatural swarms of rats that appeared with the disease, Amicia and Hugo embark on a rocky journey that will not leave them unscathed.

A Plague Tale: Innocence releases in 2019 for Playstation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/752590/A_Plague_Tale_Innocence/

A Plague Tale: Innocence, our upcoming adventure game, unleashes its hordes of rats in 16 minute-long, uncut gameplay video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djmHcNBe1Z4
In this gameplay sequence, which was unveiled behind closed door to journalists at E3 last June, we follow Amicia and her young brother Hugo through a small portion of one of the game's chapters – the site of a brutal clash between the armies of France and England, currently locked in what will be known as the Hundred Years' War.



The story of A Plague Tale begins in 1349. Rats swarm in uninterrupted waves throughout the territory of France. In the plague-ridden villages, countryside and battlefields, this uncontrollable and voracious mass advances relentlessly. The creatures devour everything in their path, men and animals alike, to satisfy the endless hunger of their ever-increasing numbers.

In the midst of hundreds of piled corpses, hordes of rats teem over the bodies and leave little hope for Amicia and Hugo to escape with their lives - the faint glow of the flame Amicia holds appears to be the only thing that repels A Plague Tale: Innocence’s swarming menace.

A Plague Tale: Innocence arrives on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC in 2019.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/752590/A_Plague_Tale_Innocence/