Any studio that managed to make a game as good as Bloodborne has to be taken seriously whenever they announce a new game. And, any studio who has created a game even remotely as difficult as the Dark Souls franchise is probably not going to waver from its path in its next game.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice seems like a game that will probably have people burying their heads in rage and frustration as they somehow try to figure out how to beat the assortment of enemies that they have to face.
Today, we thought about taking a look at Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Gameplay to see how it differs from modern games today and whether we can expect anything being a bit easier than we expect.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Gameplay
The first impression that we get from the game is that it seems to behave like Bloodborne in many ways. However, the most obvious difference is that the game is set in a Japanese setting.
Apart from that, the trailer is great because not only does it obviously show us footage from the in-game engine, but it also has a ton of action sequences for us to see firsthand what it is about.
As far as the release date of the game is concerned, it has been confirmed that the game will be out sometime next year. However, like almost every single game that is released at E3 nowadays, we do not know when the actual date of the release is.
That is probably okay since chances are that even if they gave us a specific date they would change it prior to release. The game will release on all 3 of the major platforms and none other than Activision will be the publishers of the game.
Any game that comes out from FromSoftware has its gameplay as its focal point. Let’s go ahead and take a look at how the gameplay of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice seems to differ from other games in the market right now and whether there is something for the players to be eager and excited for.
Setting and Storyline
The game is set in feudal Japan in the 1500s just like its preceding franchises Bloodborne and Dark Souls. This Sengoku-era is marked by a period of social upheaval, political conspiracies, and near-constant military conflicts. Therefore, the game features an awful lot of action packed within the communal Japanese life, including stealth missions, single-stroke battles, and Shinobi combats.
In the game, you play the role of a nameless Shinobi who was responsible for the protection of a young lord with a symbolic lineage. You are attacked by a powerful samurai who defeats your character with a single blow, kidnapping the young lord, leaving you for the dead. However, fate has some other arrangements for your character, and as the game’s title implies, death is not the end.
The Shinobi rises again, having one arm lopped off and replaced with a prosthetic, and back for vengeance. The name Sekiro translates to ‘a wolf with one arm’ and such is the protagonist, hence Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
Gameplay Mechanics
As we stated before, one of the best things about this trailer was the fact that it showed actual gameplay from the game.
While that may not be the best strategy if you plan on wooing the crowd as a cinematic trailer has much better visuals than a gameplay one, but it does show confidence in your product and the fact that your product has had a significant amount of development prior to the showing of the trailer. Significant enough for you to use actual footage from the game.
The game also features stealth mechanics allowing to avoid combat at your own discretion and get into one when need be. Special abilities of the character such as hanging off between ledges, pressing up against walls to walks on sills and mantelshelves and crouching in the grass, allow you to execute your missions and maneuvers in secrecy.
Combat Mechanics
It is easy to see from the trailer that the game has a hack-n-slash mentality. That means that the gameplay of the game may not be revolutionary, but it also means that the game may have a familiar control style that many players of the genre will already be accustomed too.
However, in some manner, the game is unlike any other from From Software games, such as, there exists a dedicated jump button that shall be discussed shortly.
However, remember that the game is not one dimensional by any means as there does seem to be something protruding from the left arm of the protagonist and this could add an exciting twist to the combat in ways which we do not know of.
Additionally, your character does not have a health bar to show for the damage it has dealt with. This is owed to the predominant medieval art of combating that the gameplay possesses, and in order to achieve that the health bar is a small price to play. Yet there exists the concept of HP for the character.
The one on one combat mechanics is a lot more to talk about. Having rid of the health bar, the gameplay features an element of the ‘posture’, as portrayed in medieval Japanese and Samurai movies. The characters maintain a posture during the battle with their swords clash.
Every hit you land on your enemy that is blocked, stills them off their posture a bit, and after a series of blocks, you get an opening to land a successful hit also known as Shinobi Death Blow- This attack kills weaker opponents immediately while others take a while to kill.
However, similar is the case with your character. Each hit you block also affects your posture as it does your opponents but blocking a blow perfectly will not affect your posture instead it backfires on the opponent.
Moreover, the Shinobi prosthetic allows you to mount shields and axes to add up to your combat experience.
There are also many other things which we get to see glimpses of in the trailer. One of them being the grappling hook that the protagonist can use to get too far away ledges very quickly.
It also means that there are chances for you to style on your enemies as you move quickly from one end of the area to another to hack apart enemies before returning to the previous place to take care of more foes.
As is the case with almost any game that is based in feudal Japan, stealth is also a viable option for you and you will be able to stop yourself from using any weapon at all if you choose to do this. Whether this will be an option for all of the missions or just specific ones is a fact that remains to be seen so far.
Weapons
As we stated at the start, the core gameplay seems to be similar to that of the hack-n-slash games that we have seen for far too long now.
The weapon variety is not as much pleasing as the use of it. For instance, you always have a katana equipped to your right-hand that cannot be replaced by any other weapon. The equipability of the left-hand is a bit more to talk of. The Shinobi Prosthetic can be equipped with an ax, a shield or a torch. The ax is capable of breaking through opponents shields, the shield is to protect your own self and the torch can set your enemies ablaze. It can also be used to set fire to the katana.
Despite the fact that there will probably be quite a few twists to make the gameplay more compelling and fun, the weapons were the one department where the developers did not really have a choice in how they wanted to move forward.
The game is set in ancient Japan. This means that the weaponry, like everything else in the game, has to be reminiscent of the time so as to not pull an Electronic Arts and have women soldiers with prosthetic arms fighting on the frontlines of the largest conflict in history.
Essentially, the weapons that are available to you are various different Katanas, Bows, Shuriken, Grappling Hook and a shield that seems to resemble an umbrella and looks downright awesome.
Enemies
A game like this deserves some extremely mean bosses, and all of the ones that we get to see in the trailer are downright vicious. The bosses range from all sorts of different beasts to masters of their respective fighting disciplines.
They seem to be much stronger than you are so it will definitely be interesting to see whether they are beatable or whether they imitate the bosses that were to be found in Dark Souls.
One thing is for sure. As far as the action aspect of the game is concerned, the developers have more than held their ground. At least in the trailer.
Apart from that, we will have to wait until the game actually comes out to see whether or not the story is something worth spending money on and whether or not the other aspects of the game are polished enough to have a decent amount of replayability.
That is all we have for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Gameplay. Let us know if we missed something using the comments section below!
