A Plague Tale: Requiem

General Tips

Veterans of _Innocence_ should be aware of a number of changes. While there are a greater number of enemies, you have more tools to deal with them, including single-use knives and - from Chapter 5 - a crossbow which can kill the great majority of enemies. Amicia can also survive a single hit and she can hit back, briefly spectacular enemies, which means that discovery no longer means death. That said, knives and crossbow bolts are extremely scarce resources so the best fights are the ones you avoid.

There are enemies that you can't kill with the crossbow, at least not directly. The basic shielded enemies block all attacks from the front. However, they don't wear helmets so if you can catch them unawares, you can kill them with a headshot. Otherwise, look for items in the environment that you can use to disable them (pots of tar or bags of salpeter) since this leaves them vulnerable to headshots. Armoured enemies cannot be killed until you break their armour. Most armoured enemies have a weak point on their backs which you can hit if you catch them unawares or disable them with environmental hazards. After breaking their armour, you can kill them with your crossbow. Very late game, you will start to encounter knight enemies with heavy armour and shields. The weak point is on the breastplate so you can't attack them unawares and you need to disable them with environmental hazards before you can deal with them.

There are two types of combat encounters, one where you have to cross an area while avoiding groups of soldiers (or, if you prefer, facing them head on) and another where you have to defeat waves of enemies. These "survive the assault" sequences can become a little much towards the end of the game but if you get stuck, you can enable invincibility from the settings menu.

The way in which you handle the first type of encounter gives you experience points which unlock skills. Intuitively, avoiding combat improves your stealth (the "Prudence" tree) while killing most enemies improves your combat abilities (the "Aggressive" tree). However, the "Opportunism" tree, which improves your crafting efficiency, is not increased by using alchemical ammo and environmental hazards as you might expect but rather by killing one third to two thirds of the enemies in any given encounter. That said, none of the skill unlocks are that impactful, so approach the encounters however you prefer.

Gear upgrades are rather more impactful, particularly the crossbow upgrades since being able to carry more than two bolts and being able to retrieve them from dead enemies gives you a lot more flexibility as to how you manage the game's combat encounters. However, some upgrades are definitely more equal than others. The Alchemy upgrades are extremely situational, to the degree that I don't think I killed a single enemy by throwing Odoris into something burning, while the Instruments upgrades are pretty much useless - workbenches are commonplace and you will find more than enough tools.

Collectibles and other rare pick-ups (knives, tools and so forth) are highly missable. You will come across doors which Amicia bolts behind herself and gaps which she squeezes through which turn out to be one way only. These are, in fact, area transitions and there is no going back to a previous area. Similarly, there is typically no going back after a cutscene: the story has moved on and you need to move on as well. If the walkthrough text mentions a collectible (or even rare resources), make sure you pick them up there and then.

Most alchemical materials are extremely commonplace to a degree that you don't really need to worry about conserving them. This remains true on Hard difficulty / New Game+ which gives you fewer knives, bolts and pieces of pyrite. The exception is Episanguis which is only found in a handful of fixed locations. However, since you don't really need to use Odoris much, missing a couple of pieces of Episanguis or accidentally throwing Odoris at an enemy with your sling is not a reload condition.

Trophies

While you will unlock 17 of the 36 trophies simply by playing the game, you will need to do two playthroughs (or, more accurately, one-and-a-half) if you're playing for trophies. This is because you cannot complete all three skill trees without carrying your progress over into New Game+. As it happens, there aren't enough "pieces" in the game to complete all gear upgrades either but if you want to get all crafting trophies out of the way, you can cheat: save up 175 pieces and 6 tools, find a workbench, complete an upgrade tree and then, without closing the crafting interface, reload the checkpoint.

Besides missable collectibles and secret chests, there are missable trophies unlocked in Chapter 1, Chapter 4, Chapter 8 and Chapter 9. However, I call these out in the walkthrough so besides having to reload a checkpoint because you missed a pine cone with your sling, you shouldn't miss them.

New Game+

After completing the game once, you can choose New Game+, although it is non-obvious how to do so. From the main menu, go back (◯ button) to the save slot selection screen. Select a slot where you've completed the game and choose "Create NG+" (△ button).

Now you can select "New Game+" from the main menu rather than Chapter select. The difficulty is increased but you get to retain the skills and upgrades which you unlocked. You also get a new skin for your crossbow (Order's crossbow). Note that any crafting materials and ammo that you had at the end of your first playthrough will be lost. Collectible progress carries over but secret chest progress does not so that if you failed to get the Explorer trophy on your first playthrough, you will have to unlock all ten chests on your NG+ playthrough. On the other hand, if you _did_ open all 10 chests on your first playthrough, you can use all those knives to stab guards who get in your face!