Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

XTHINK GAMES ARE EASY? SEKIRO WILL PUT YOU IN YOUR PLACE

- Steve Boxer

Back in the dim and distant days of the games industry, there used to be a debate about how hard games should be. Then, in 2009, FromSoftware blew any such considerations with its RPG Demon’s Souls.

Demon’s Souls was sadistically hard and launched the Japanese developer on a follow-up trajectory which spawned the Dark Souls games and Bloodborne (collectively known as Soulsborne games). None of those showed a hint of compromise, an approach which generated an army of fans and cupboards full of awards.

FromSoftware concluded the Soulsborne games with 2016’s Dark Souls III, so Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is the beginning of a new chapter for the developer. So what’s new? Well, not a great deal. While it has various elements we haven’t seen in Dark Souls or Bloodborne, Sekiro’s underlying design still conforms to the general formula of its predecessors. And it’s hair-tearingly hard, naturally.

Sekiro’s setting, at least, is different. Its action takes place in an impressively decorous rendering of 1500s Japan, during the Sengoku period. You play a shinobi known as the Wolf, who has sworn to protect a young noble. But Wolf’s master is kidnapped – in the process of which the shinobi’s left arm is severed – setting up the game’s premise, namely that the Wolf must rescue him.

Sekiro, then, places a greater emphasis on having some sort of narrative thrust than its predecessors: the odd cutscene and the chance to converse with random characters maintain the storyline’s flow.