Plague Tale actress explains how action-oriented approach works best for Resonance
Although it neatly wrapped up the stories of Amicia and Huge de Rune in 2022’s A Plague Tale: Requiem, Asobo Studio’s big plans for the series continues with the release of Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy which hit PC and consoles this week.
Among many changes Asobo has made to the franchise with this entry, one standout feature is that it takes on a much heavier action-adventure approach.
The previous Plague Tale games had you play as Amicia, a character who did not grow up as a trained fighter and had to rely on stealth and cunning to survive in this brutal world. Meanwhile, Sophia grew up as a smuggler, and becomes very skilled at combat by the time she’s an adult, hence why Resonance becomes more of an action game compared to its predecessors.
Sophia’s actress Anna Demetriou spoke to GAMINGbible at Gamescom to talk about some of the biggest changes that Resonance makes to the Plague Tale formula, and why Sophia was the perfect character to experiment with the action-adventure approach.
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“[Asobo] wanted after Requiem, it was a good seven years or so of them in this world with Amicia and Hugo, and I think they had just used up all the energy they had on those particular characters and they wanted to try something different and challenge themselves in a different way, but keep the universe.
“I think this was an interesting route for them and I'm obviously really grateful that they did. Plague Tale players will still feel really familiar because the style, the engine that they use, the world building and obviously the very strong narrative stays the same.”
Resonance takes place years before the character's appearance in Requiem
Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy takes place 15 years before the events of A Plague Tale: Requiem, featuring Sophia long before she became the nicknamed ‘Scorpion of the Sea’.
In comparing the character between these two points in her life, Demetriou says that it was “such a nice opportunity to take everything you know about something and put it in a completely different situation.
“She is the same but also so different. She's the same Sophia that we know. But it's, the way I described it is like she has less of a thought process before she does something. In Requiem she's a lot more measured and grounded and reliable. And in this one she's still who she is but without all of that thinking. No thinking, more doing.
“It was a challenge to remember that the whole way through and make sure that she was a little bit on edge the whole time and not a bit more reckless and impulsive, but very very very fun.”
Although she provided the voice of Sophia in A Plague Tale: Requiem, Resonance is the first time Demetriou performs the character using motion capture, a common way to record animated performances in modern film, TV, and video games.
“Mo-cap is a really unique experience for an actor. It's hard to describe it to anybody if they ask me how to do it. I always say it's somewhere between film and theatre, it's not either of those things, it doesn't need to be as big but it also doesn't need to be as small, and I think finding that balance is a challenge.”
While it’s often agreed upon by industry officials to be the best way of capturing a performance in modern video games, motion capture also comes with its own challenges.
“There are times where I watch cutscenes back and I'm like: ‘oh I wish I'd gone bigger on that moment’ or ‘I wish I'd gone smaller’ because you can't ever really know until it's fully animated and you watch it back. But you also don't get that opportunity when you're working,” she explains.
“It's definitely different and I think it's just remembering where the camera might be. I think I found it really really helpful to ask the technical director where they think the camera might be at this moment. Is this important to gesture over here or to make a point over there and sometimes it was and sometimes it's not.”
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Hints at Sophia's sexuality was 'very intentional'
In the years since Sophia’s debut in A Plague Tale: Requiem, the character also became a queer icon among players, with aspects of her sexuality digested in fan discussions, something that Demetriou agrees she “absolutely sees that for her.”
“If people are getting that vibe from her, I think that's pretty accurate, I would say so. Yeah. It's very intentional. It's like it's just in her, she's non-conforming and she is brave and I don't think she's out here looking for any validation from any man at any point. So if that is the interpretation, I would definitely say that's a correct interpretation of who she may be in the depths of her lore that we don't necessarily always experience.”
She continues that “she would love to play more queer characters,” citing one of her favourite video games, The Last of Us, as a top example of queer storytelling in the interactive space.
It’s this aspect of the character that Demetriou also believes allows the player to feel vulnerable in this dog-eat-dog world that Asobo Studio has created. With the Plague Tale games emphasising the brutal reality of this world, even a character as skilled as Sophia can come up against challenges that are hard to overcome.
“While she can absolutely hold her own and kick ass the whole way through, the vulnerability is very much under the surface the second there's a moment for it to pop out. And it increasingly pops out as the story goes on. The writing really lends itself to that vulnerability and it's all a very beautiful script.”
Fans can now experience Sophia's story in Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy is out now for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.