MULTI Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

In an Activision hotel suite on Sunday, I watched a From developer play through an extended demo of Sekiro. Short version: it combines light stealth, brutal sword-fighting, vertical leaps, and the Souls bosses that have charmed us all over the years.

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Those big encounters, which we also saw unfold, are all about swordfighting. As you’re clashing with an enemy, you’ll have to parry their attacks. Each good block will drain your opponent’s “posture” meter, and if you take it down far enough, you can deliver a deathblow, killing them instantly. Their attacks and parries will also drain your own posture meter.

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• This is not a Tenchu game, but it’s heavily inspired by From’s old action series.
• Why is From publishing this game with Activision, of all publishers? “We were looking to work with a western publisher. We had a lot of options. We thought Activision could be a really good partner, in terms of support they could offer, in terms of them seeing our vision... We really appreciate the way they were able to help us in things we wanted help on. For example, data-driven stuff, to have users come in, identify stuff like people getting lost in a level... In terms of just getting player understanding, it’s been a huge help.”
• One fixture of the demo is a giant snake who will definitely insta-kill you if it spots you.
• At one point, we watched the player run into an old lady. “She’s part of an evil cult, and will call everyone if she spots you,” said Conkey. That’s why they murdered her.
• The demo hinted at a lot of secrets and hidden passages, like a “Shinobi door” that allowed the player access to a new area. “There are a lot of secret passages and areas intended for ninjas to use,” said Conkey.
• You can throw shurikens with your left arm, among other tools.
• One final note: “There are gonna be a lot of really hard bosses in this game.”

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As our demo finished up, we were told that Shadows Die Twice is a single-player game only, and that though there won’t be stats, the team is “doing something different this time”.

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Some types of enemies will have specific, learnable weaknesses that can be exploited by attentive players.

Kitao confirmed that the final game will have some type of checkpoint system, but that it won’t work like Souls’ bonfires or Bloodborne’s lanterns.

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When asked about the doors Kitao said, “It’s not the same as any of their previous games, but if you had to say which is was most similar to, you would say Dark Souls 1, as you have the continuously interconnected world as you did in that title. Then you also have multiple paths you can take throughout that world.”

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Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is not an RPG. There are no stats to level up and no armor or weapons to collect and equip. There are no classes to choose from. There is no multiplayer of any kind. You'll have no souls to reclaim after dying, and—from the looks of it—no checkpoint bonfires to kindle.

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• The project began at the end of 2015, after the development of the Bloodborne DLC had ended. They were preparing for a few titles to do after the current DS3 development ends
• The game design began with the keyword of Ninja, with a lot of stimulus coming from the Tenchu series
• There was the option to make it a Tenchu game, but Tenchu was originally a series made by many different developers, each with their own characteristics. They thought they would end up imitating them in the end, so they gave up on that.
• Game development and publishing in Japan and Asia will be handled by From, with Activision handling all other regions. Activision gave a lot of advice regarding many things, including game development.
• To be clear though, game development and final decisions were always in our hands to begin with.
• The subtitle was catch copy for the trailer that I had thought of, for some reason the publisher really liked it, and made it part of the title.
• Shadows refers to the way of the Ninja, and Die Twice hinted at the revive system which is a gameplay feature. In addition, Die Twice also contains the message that players will be doing a lot of dying again.
• The time is set near the end of the Sengoku warring period in Japan. Like all other games before this, it isn’t an actual location, but it is in a high-altitude cold country(Japan was splintered into countries during this time). Begin at the end of the Sengoku era also holds the nuance that the country may be at its end (as Japan will soon be unified).
• Realism wasn’t something we were too concerned with. As with Dark Souls, it is constructed according to our own interpretation.
• The game has a fixed protagonist, but it’s not a linear story-driven game. The story does revolve around the character, but beyond that nothing has changed in our stance to storytelling from the previous games.
• There are three main actions (gameplay features). First off is the grappling hook that lets you move vertically on a 3-dimensional map.
• Then there is the sword play: the offense and defense of it, and the one-hit kills of the Ninsatsu.
• The third is “killing cleverly.” The game takes pains to allow for different approaches to killing, from making a ninja-like opening by using the hook to take the high ground,
• Killing cleverly is an important theme. Taking on difficult challenges, and then enjoying the experience of overcoming them
• In this game, when you met an enemy you won’t be immediately plunged into battle. The levels are designed to let you observe and think about how to take them on, and you can also “listen in” on enemies who aren’t in combat mode.
• The ninja prosthetics are to support the combat parts of the game: shuriken, firecracker, hidden axe and other variations. Choose a few items before, then choose on-site t use them (probably like Tenchu?)
• It’s an action adventure game, so the protagonist has growth tied to a different method than RPGs
• Map design is close to DS1, with a few exceptions, it is a seamlessly connected 3-dimensional map.
• The reason for leaving out online play, was to focus on making the fun of the single-player experience
• The revive system consumes resources, being able to come back to life at will at the same location. Killing an enemy who think you are dead is also a tactic.
• Revives are at the moment, guaranteed once, with additional revives requiring resources. In order to keep death something to be nervous about, the penalty and restrictions are tuned to keep the game at a good pace.
• You can say that the sharp penalties are there because of the revive system.
• As for the difficulty, this time you can overcome ever harder obstacles than before, with the difficulty based not on how well the actions are performed (player-skill) but aimed to be something that can be done with cleverness and work
• At the very least, we do not intend it to be difficult for difficulty’s sake, but we are also not making it easy.

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FredFredson schrieb:

Your death wont come easily. Und dann steht er da auf. Denke man hat direkt bei der Todesstelle den zweiten Versuch und nicht beim Checkpoint. Erst beim zweiten Tod muss man neu starten. Shadows die twice würde das erklären und für Activision gleich mal das soulsPrinzip etwas abgeschwächt und die Zielgruppe vergrößert. Kann mir aber auch vorstellen dass das Spiel als Ausgleich noch etwas schwerer ist

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• The revive system consumes resources, being able to come back to life at will at the same location. Killing an enemy who think you are dead is also a tactic.
• Revives are at the moment, guaranteed once, with additional revives requiring resources. In order to keep death something to be nervous about, the penalty and restrictions are tuned to keep the game at a good pace.

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"Whereas the other [player] who just likes to rush in there, go katana-on-katana and feel that blade-to-blade, blow-by-blow gameplay, they're going to feel that intensity. They're going to get that really high-level challenge that's probably even more challenging than previous From games. So we feel everyone's going to be able to have something to suit them.

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"We think the level of enjoyment is going to really vary and be very broad from player to player," [...] "If you are that player who likes to take their time and carefully piece things together and learn the enemies' weaknesses and positioning, and observe everything, you're going to have a great time. [...] "It's that sense of discovery as you explore the three-dimensional maps – you're going to find something, maybe a new prosthetic tool that makes you think, 'Hey, why don't I use this against that enemy?'"

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