A Plague Tale: Requiem’s Skill System Explained

A Plague Tale: Requiem gives you even more options than the first game for boosting Amicia’s combat abilities. On top of equipment upgrades, Requiem introduces a dynamic new skill system. However, it’s not as simple as earning skill points, as the new system adapts to the way you play.

Understanding how it works can be a bit confusing in the early going, so we’ll help break down the intricacies of how the skill system operates in A Plague Tale: Requiem, telling you how to learn and raise each of your skills and abilities.

How to Learn New Skills

Skills are separated into three different categories in Requiem:

• Prudence
• Aggressive
• Opportunism

These categories essentially correspond to three different playstyles, and the more you play prudently aggressively, or opportunistically, the more experience you earn in those corresponding categories. 

The hard part is that there are no numbers or progression bars involved in the system, so it’s not immediately clear how much you’re earning at any given time.

The best thing to keep in mind is that any “encounter” with enemies — whether that’s in an open area you need to sneak through or a forced combat section — will give you experience in some category. Once that section is over, you’ll get the experience toward a category or categories. For example, if you’re sneaking through ruins, once you reach a door that Amicia locks behind her, you’ll be granted experience.

With that in mind, here’s how you raise each of the three categories.

How to Raise Your Prudence Skills

The Prudence skill category applies to stealth. Actions that count toward experience in this tree include:

• Sneaking by enemies.
• Hiding in grass.
• Distracting enemies.

The stealthier you are, the more experience you’ll get, so do not raise the alarm or get discovered. If you use alchemical tools to distract enemies, you can still get Prudence experience, or, for example, if you leave some enemies alive and kill others. But keep in mind you want to be stealthy and unseen to raise Prudence. 

How to Raise Your Aggressive Skills

As you might expect, the Aggressive category of abilities applies entirely to fighting enemies directly. Requiem gives you a lot more options for combat, so you have plenty of ways to dispatch enemies. The following actions contribute to gaining experience in the Aggressive branch: 

• Killing enemies with your crossbow or sling.
• Sneaking up on enemies and choking them.

Being aggressive can, of course, be more dangerous than other approaches, and if Amicia gets swarmed by multiple enemies, it can lead to trouble very quickly. 

How to Raise Your Opportunism Skills

Opportunism is by far the hardest category to raise, as it applies to using alchemical tools. This doesn’t just mean crafting your alchemical ammo, but instead actually using it. As you go through enemy-filled areas, you’ll find multiple objects you can interact with, like jars of tar that can be hit with Ignifer to start a fire, or torches you can put out with Extinguis to get rats to kill an enemy.

You need to take out or distract enemies with alchemy in order to raise this category, so try and be creative with your approach. One thing to always keep in mind is Odoris, which you can use to attract rats to a certain position. This can be used to position rats at key chokepoints, where you can use Extinguis to put out the enemy’s torches.

At the same time, don’t forget to use pots with things like Ignifer (lighting an area on fire) or Extinguis (blinding a group of enemies so you can escape). 

As an extra note, it’s generally a good idea to put most of your focus on using stealth and alchemical tools for the bulk of the game. This is because A Plague Tale: Requiem throws a lot of mandatory combat encounters at you in the last few chapters, so you’ll get a good amount of Aggressive experience that way. Additionally, when you start New Game+ all of your experience will carry over. 

That’s all you need to know about how to increase each skill in A Plague Tale: Requiem. Check out our review of the game, or our guide on how to defeat armored enemies.