When I first heard that From Software, the creators of Dark Souls and Bloodborne are working on another game, my first line of thought was “oh, another dark soul-like game is inbound”, however what I saw wasn’t Dark souls at all gameplay wise, but instead looked entirely different in a good way.
Introducing Sekiro™: Shadows Die Twice, a fantastical, dark and twisted new gameplay experience from developer FromSoftware, creators of Bloodborne and the Dark Souls series.
Directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, and published by Activision, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a third-person, action-adventure game with RPG elements. The single-player game puts players in the protagonist role of a hard-hearted warrior whose mission is to rescue his master, a young lord who is the descendant of an ancient bloodline, and exact revenge on his arch nemesis. Set in the re-imagined world of late 1500s Sengoku Japan; a brutal, bloody period of constant life-and-death conflict, in Sekiro™: Shadows Die Twice you are the “one-armed wolf,” a disgraced and disfigured warrior rescued from the brink of death.In the game, players come face-to-face with larger than life foes; unleash an arsenal of deadly prosthetic tools and powerful ninja abilities to blend stealth, vertical traversal, and visceral head-to-head combat in a bloody confrontation.
Take revenge. Restore your honor. Kill Ingeniously. Your death won’t come easily.
From the gameplay alone you can tell that this game will have the same or similar level of difficulty as Dark Souls 3 and/or Bloodborne. The gameplay mechanic that was shown does have a blood-borne vibe to it and considering that the main character doesn’t have any shield on him, it might be safe to assume that dodging will be similar, if not more refined than how it was in Bloodborne.
Another key difference that sets this game apart from its predecessors and probably may not sit well with some of the hardcore fans of this line of series is the inclusion of a narrative, linear story, centered around a character. It’s too soon to tell whether the character will be customizable or not but for me personally I like this inclusion of a narrative driven story. I’ve always leaned more towards games that have a narrative behind them and this game seems pretty interesting with is Japanese themed landscape and enemies.
Of course, I have to mention the elephant in the room that is Activision. They don’t have the best of reputation and who know what these guys will have in store with Sekiro. So it can’t be helped that I may have some skepticism of Activision’s involvement. As long as they don’t try and pull any bullshit like adding unnecessary lootboxes, pay to boost or any other crap like that then we shouldn’t have anything to worry about.
Now about the gameplay itself, previous titles from From Software have always followed a similar pattern. Sekiro really shakes things up with its grappling mechanic. It really adds another level of fun into the game. I honestly can’t wait to hear more about the game in the future.
