Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy Hands-On Preview

Making its debut in May 2019, the Plague Tale series currently consists of two entries, A Plague Tale: Innocence and A Plague Tale: Requiem, both of which follow protagonist Amicia de Rune and her brother Hugo as they flee from the French Inquisition during the outbreak of the black plague in the 14th century. During their dark adventures in Requiem, Amicia and Hugo find an ally in a smuggler named Sophia, a supporting character who's taking center stage in the series' next entry, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy.

Taking place 15 years before the events of A Plague Tale: Requiem, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy looks to be a pretty big departure from the two games that have come before it. A new protagonist is taking the spotlight, an entirely new location is being explored, mythology is playing an even greater role, and there's a very different gameplay style at its core. But after just an hour or so with Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, I'm already convinced that this is exactly where the series needs to be going next.

Putting The 'Action' in Action-Adventure

During a recent trip to Paris, I was given around an hour of hands-on time with Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy. My preview journey began with a quick combat tutorial, and within seconds the game's biggest departure from prior entries, and its greatest strength in my opinion, became apparent. While Innocence and Requiem had players relying on stealth and well-placed ranged attacks to get past enemy encounters, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy leans all the way into fast-paced, methodical, almost Soulslike melee combat.

A smuggler who's been forced to grow up on the streets and in various criminal gangs, Resonance's primary protagonist Sophia is a trained fighter, and players will feel that immediately when taking control of her. Right out of the gate, Resonance gives players access to a fast attack that uses Sophia's main melee weapon, a powerful critical strike that sees Sophia take out her trusty dagger, and a guard break that stuns smaller opponents. Delivering any of these attacks builds an enemy's stagger meter, which eventually opens them up to a brutal and often bloody finisher that sees Sophia plunging her dagger into an assortment of vital organs.

While hacking away at enemies takes up one half of Resonance's combat system, the other half puts an emphasis on parrying consecutive light attacks and dodging unblockable strikes, with the former defensive move also building an enemy's stagger meter. Players will also have access to a grappling hook early on in the game which will pull enemies off ledges and into environmental hazards. Some enemies will also drop their weapons upon death, giving players the opportunity to lob them quickly at another opponent with the tap of a button.

This is a very familiar combat system that gamers have seen countless times and in many different variations since the dawn of the Soulslike genre in the early 2010s, but that doesn't stop it from feeling incredibly satisfying this time around. Weapon strikes feel simultaneously weighty and elegant, finishers look and feel effectively violent, and the ability to chain such a variety of fast-paced attacks together in quick succession gives Resonance's combat a very fluid, deliberate, and satisfying feel.

These incredibly strong foundations are then built on via Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy's skill system. Jumping ahead just a little bit, Resonance gives players a skill tree that's packed with genuinely useful combat abilities, such as the ability to press the guard break input twice to kick enemies into the environment and each other to inflict massive stagger build-up, or an ability that lets players absorb an attack after killing an enemy with a critical strike. Each of these core combat skills then has two Masteries, only one of which can be activated at a time. These Masteries enhance the ability in some clear way, such as increasing the stun damage of a guard break kick if it knocks the enemy into the environment.

Still a Narrative-Led Experience, But a Much Pacier One

Following that impressive introduction to Resonance's combat mechanics, I was thrown into Chapter 4 of Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy's main story. While I'm unsure just why and how they got there, Sophia and her smuggling ally Leni have arrived on the island of Crete in search of an ancient temple that's said to be the home of the Minotaur from Greek myth. I took control of Sophia just as she neared a chasm, preventing her access from the temple doors on the other side.

Taking some major inspiration from Uncharted (I confirmed that Naughty Dog's action-adventure series was a big influence during an interview with Resonance's lead writer), I was quickly prompted to pull out a book that Sophia was carrying. This book was filled with in-universe hand-drawn illustrations, many of which depict the environments that I would soon be walking through. Just like in Uncharted, this book was used frequently throughout the chapter I played, often teasing puzzle solutions and providing hints of where to go next.

But also just like Uncharted, Sophia's book provides both gameplay utility and optional story content. While the exact reason for Sophia's adventure to Crete was kept a mystery to me, it was revealed that Sophia has been haunted by strange visions of the Minotaur since she was a child, and that she feels a deep connection to the island and the temple residing there. Sophia's book is home to a few eerie drawings of these childhood visions, cementing a strong central mystery from the get-go.

On top of this spooky central mystery, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy features a clearly-defined antagonistic force. While, again, I'm not totally sure of the context leading up to it, Resonance Chapter 4 sees Sophia and Leni coming to blows with the Venetian army, who are seemingly also on a mission to explore the temple of the Minotaur. The constantly-encroaching threat of the Venetian army is reinforced effectively throughout the chapter via subtle, dynamic storytelling moments, such as seeing the army encampments on the beach below as Sophia shimmies across a cliff edge, or seeing torch-wielding soldiers descend the stairs of the temple a few hundred feet in front of the player. These moments never take control away from the player, and they routinely build a strong sense of momentum as the player progresses through their adventure.

On that note, the entire structure of Resonance (at least in this specific chapter) actually feels as though it's been expressly designed to deliver a pacier experience. Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy seems to be quite a linear game. Players move from a combat arena to sections of light platforming to an environmental puzzle and then back to a combat arena. But while this linear structure sounds repetitive on paper, there's an organic progression through the chapter in terms of both combat and puzzle variety. Combat scenarios continue to introduce new threats and more complex arenas as the chapter goes on, such as brutes that can't be parried, and puzzles add new mechanical layers with each subsequent iteration, such as a light-based puzzle that requires the use of mirrors in one trial and then the use of both mirrors and player-memory in the next.

Additionally, though some optional collectibles are strewn throughout the world, they're easy to spot, and they're often found on the main path, not really requiring a ton of exploration. It feels as though the whole game is constantly pushing you forward, and I personally thought that the faster pace did a great job of making Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy feel like a thrilling, grand-scale adventure, albeit one that still has a lot going on narratively.

Building a Grounded and Grand Adventure

What bolsters this feeling of grand adventure at every turn is Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy's generally excellent presentation. Environmental design is a key highlight of my time with Resonance. The temple's architecture felt grounded but splendid, underground tombs felt ominous and awe-inspiring, and the use of lighting throughout the chapter felt first-class, with a slew of both obvious and subtle effects that helped to create this fun yet foreboding atmosphere.

Resonance's character and face models were also very well detailed and animated expertly. During combat, Sophia's strikes looked purposeful and powerful, and during exploration, Sophia gestured naturally with her arms as she talked and addressed specific aspects of the environment.

Unfortunately, I did notice some general fuzziness in textures across the board. Foliage had a tendency to look a little low-res, Sophia's hair looked quite blurry, and certain parts of the environment would occasionally look flat. To be clear, I did play an early PC build of Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, so it's very possible that these slight visual shortcomings are ironed out before the final product releases, but they were definitely noticeable during my preview.

Audio-wise, Resonance seems to have no issues. The performances behind Sophia and Leni sounded very natural and compelling, subtle music cues added a nice layer of mystery and emotion to key moments, and ambient noises like birds chirping or the wind blowing through cracks in a tomb helped to solidify the game's grounded tone.

After just an hour or so, I can wholeheartedly say that Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy is now one of my most anticipated games of 2026. With some satisfying and fluid combat mechanics, some engaging puzzles, a captivating multi-layered narrative, a gripping sense of momentum, and generally impressive presentation, there's not much I didn't like about Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy. If the one chapter I played is indicative of the wider experience, then I think the Plague Tale series has a good chance of taking the world by storm once again.

GameRant was provided travel and lodging support for this preview coverage.