Games of 2022: A Plague Tale: Requiem provided the best big sister

I think fiction sometimes forgets about the bonds between brothers and sisters and how powerful they can be. I guess we usually see siblings as a way of showing two sides of the same coin - one who turned out evil while the other turned out good, like me and my brother. But if a story wants us to feel that harrowing sense of fear or loss, and desperation, it's usually a parent-child set-up they go for.

But A Plague Tale doesn't - A Plague Tale goes for the sister-brother bond. It's the whole central concept to the series: experiencing the brutality of 14th century France through the vulnerability of two children. Well, 'children' - one is a teenager, 15-year-old Amicia, and the other is a five-year-old boy, Hugo. The series begins with them on the run after their family is attacked, and they never really stop running until the end of A Plague Tale: Requiem.

In all this time - about a year's worth, I think - Amicia is Hugo's everything. She keeps him alive day to day, and alive in the face of murderous soldiers and murderous rats, and there are hordes of both. And through it all, and perhaps because of it all, a profound bond forms between them.

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