Set in the late 1500s Sengoku Japan, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is an action-adventure game with RPG elements where players experience a brutal period of constant life and death conflict as they come face-to-face with larger-than-life foes in a dark and twisted world.Chris "Atom" DeAngelus: The latest game from Dark Souls developer From Software, Sekiro is the latest attempt to evolve the series. Somewhat looking like Samurai Dark Souls, it seems to be aiming for a faster pace and more over-the-top action than the Souls franchise. The demos we've seen include a lot of familiar elements in addition to all sorts of new goodies, like grappling hooks. Really though 90% of the audience was probably sold at the words "from the makers of Dark Souls."
Cody Medellin: While many are expecting the game to be a ninja version of Dark Souls, this is shaping up to be more of a return to the original Tenchu games that From had a hand in shaping during the original PlayStation era. Stealth looks to be the main focus, but the prosthetic arm can add more to the gameplay and item use. Better yet, there's also an emphasis on an improved combat system, which the original Tenchu titles could have used.
Andreas Salmen: Whatever From Software tackles, it'll live in the large shadow of its Souls trilogy. Most of their games exhibit the same core gameplay mechanics expanded into different directions, like the excellent Bloodborne. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice doubles down on a more action-heavy execution that seems to remove or limit the semi-open-world aspects of previous From Software games in favor of a more story-driven samurai revenge adventure. That doesn't mean the game will be a breeze to play through, as our hands-on time at GamesCom brutally proved. Expect to die — a lot. Don't think that Sekiro might be a step down because the combat is as reliant on skill and understanding enemy behavior as any other title from its developer. If they can execute the ideas well, Sekiro will certainly be a grand and brutal adventure to master in 2019.
Thomas Wilde: I liked Tenchu back in the day, and Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox, so I'm curious if From Software still has the hard-but-fair action chops if you extract the RPG elements from it. Admittedly, this is almost certainly going to be too masochistic for me, but I'll be interested to see the usual suspects as they try and fail to break it over their collective knee.
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