A Plague Tale: Requiem Update 1.3 is Out Now

A Plague Tale: Requiem update 1.3 is now rolling out globally on both PC and consoles, Asobo Studio confirmed Wednesday. The Bordeaux, France-based developer also published in-depth patch notes detailing the new update, revealing that the latest version of A Plague Tale: Requiem introduces rebalancing changes and a plethora of bug fixes and performance optimizations, among other things. The exact list of changes is platform-specific.

Released last month, A Plague Tale: Requiem is a direct sequel to Asobo Studio's 2019 survival horror game A Plague Tale: Innocence. Much like its predecessor, it's a stealth-heavy single-player adventure which was met with both critical acclaim and fan adoration. Earlier this year, Asobo Studio partnered with French media conglomerate Mediawan on a TV adaptation of A Plague Tale: Innocence starring Millie Bobby Brown, best known as Eleven from Stranger Things.

On the PC side of things, the highlight of the newly published changelog is that A Plague Tale: Requiem update 1.3 introduces support for Valve's hit handheld console Steam Deck. Furthermore, Asobo Studio rebalanced the difficulty of final fights in the game, in addition to fixing a variety of bugs across all platforms. The developer also tweaked some AI systems, including the prevalent rat swarms, in order to minimize frame rate drops.

Performance improvements aside, A Plague Tale: Requiem remains capped at 30 frames per second on consoles. Since its predecessor offered 60fps gameplay on both the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, some fans are still taking to social media to voice their displeasure about this arguable step backwards. Asobo Studio is yet to give any indication that it intends to address this technical complaint about the game. In the meantime, the best that PS5 and Xbox gamers can do is to hook up their consoles to a 120Hz display, which elevates the frame rate cap to 40fps.

Since A Plague Tale: Requiem is a single-player title full of slow, methodical stealth sections, it can also be argued that running it in 60fps isn't crucial to enjoying the experience. And given how the game already surpassed a huge player milestone during its launch week, it would appear that many fans of horror and narrative-driven titles agree with that sentiment.

While there's no denying that A Plague Tale: Innocence offered smoother gameplay on consoles, it also had significantly less ambitious set pieces. For example, one A Plague Tale: Requiem scene features 300,000 rats on screen at once, and sacrificing frame rates in order to boost the number of rendered assets has been the industry norm for a long time now.

The full patch notes for A Plague Tale: Requiem 1.3 update are as follows:

A Plague Tale: Requiem Update 1.3 Patch Notes

Patch Notes common to all platforms

Changes & Updates

Balanced difficulty in “Nothing Left” and “Dying Sun” final arena fights.

Optimization

Optimized AI, rats, terrain and navmesh to reduce framerate drops and freezing issues.

Bug Fixes

Fixed HDR issues creating crushed highlights (not applicable to Nintendo Switch).
Fixed random crashes or blockers that could happen in some chapters.
Fixed blockers or animation bugs that could happen during some crank interactions.
Fixed issue during reaction between Ignifer pot and Odoris in specific cases.
Fixed a script issue that could make the pine cones thrown by Hugo in “Under a New Sun” invisible.
Improved cart collisions to prevent going out of the map.
Fixed minor visual bugs in some chapters.
Fixed unexpected change of audio language when changing other options.
Fixed minor issues in German language.

Patch Notes specific to PC

Changes & Updates

The game is now compatible with Steam Deck.

Optimization

Added new graphics options to improve visual and performance customizations (Frame limiter, Resolution optimizer, SSAO, DOF, Screen Space Shadows, Motion Blur).
Improved auto setting graphic profiles to better match PC configurations.

Bug Fixes