It was not easy for Asobo Studio to make their game a success.

Eurogamer interviewed Kevin Choteau, the franchise’s director, who looked back on the development of the two games. He revealed that the first installment, A Plague Tale: Innocence, had a problematic start. It all goes back to Microsoft Hololens. The studio had developed a game for it (Fragments), and then, Asobo Studio wanted to experiment with something unique that wasn’t tied to any product. The Last of Us significantly impacted the developers because the characters’ mature behavior, tone, and morality blew them away.

Naughty Dog’s game was the basis on which they started. At the time, the team was working on story concepts. Ico and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons were behind the relationship between Hugo and Amicia, and the rat infestation was also coming from them. It is when the external testers who were present during the game’s development went into the picture. Many were very critical of the concept of A Plague Tale: Innocence. According to Choteau, many critics said that nothing held the whole thing together and that the game would get a 55-60% rating if released.

It took a heavy toll on the developers’ morale, as they had been developing the game for two years. Then, the director made a drastic decision: he asked everyone on the team to play the game again and redo most of the work. The dialogue was rewritten, the plot developments were reworked, and the gameplay was not spared. They did all of it to make the most successful product possible, which is why they ended up having nine extra months of development before releasing A Plague Tale: Innocence in 2019, which, in return, didn’t get another internal test. Thus, the first reviews came from critics a month before release. There was cautious optimism about the studio, and some were surprised by the high ratings.

It gave them a new motivation to develop A Plague Tale: Requiem, the sequel, taking into account where the first part had received negative reviews and correcting elements that didn’t work there. And they succeeded!

Source: GameRant