Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki has commented on what will make the highly-anticipated Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice different to its predecessors. FromSoftware has established itself as a developer that makes incredibly difficult games with fragmentary narratives and dark aesthetics. Among its most infamous titles are Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne. However, Sekiro marks a change in direction for legendary director Miyazaki.
According to Polygon, Miyazaki had the following to say:
Sekiro is just going to be something fresh and different, but it’s going to have things that are familiar to player of these old games […] keeping it fresh — providing something new — is what’s going to lead to a better game.
What Miyazaki is referring to here is the fact that Sekiro will be doing a lot of things differently to the Souls titles. For instance, Sekiro Shadows Die Twice won’t feature a PvP mode and it will have a fixed protagonist. Also, the game will focus more on stealth mechanics than previous FromSoftware titles. On this, Miyazaki said:
With stealth elements, it will allow you to sneak undetected, to an extent. While you’re undetected, you can eavesdrop on enemies to get hints about other enemy weaknesses, strategic hints about how to approach the map and certain situations, or story details as well.
Sekiro was one of the most popular games at the Tokyo Game Show, which helped to convince Miyazaki that he was making the right decision to try something new. Miyazaki said:
We believed people would enjoy what we could do without the limitations from our previous games. And you know, we’re seeing that at these shows. We’re seeing people having fun and giving us their feedback. That is a relief.
However, the one difference that trumps all others, the one change that makes Sekiro radically different from any of the Souls titles, is the fact that the iconic character Patches won’t be appearing. Miyazaki said that the team “don’t believe he’s going to be in this game.”
That was uncharitably done, dear friend.
