How Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Was Almost Going To Be A New Tenchu Game

Speaking in an interview with Gamesindustry.biz at Gamescom this year, Sekiro producer Robert Conkey talked about why From Software chose Activision to publish their game instead of Sony, and how the game was originally meant to be a new Tenchu game.

Despite both parties making games on the opposite sides of the spectrum, Conkey says that saying no wasn’t ever going to be a choice: “When From Software knocks on your door and says, ‘Hey, we wanna make a game,’ you have only one answer right?”

From Software’s community manager, Yasuhiro Kitao, talked about why they chose Activision to publish Sekiro despite the studio’s good relationship with both Sony and Bandai Namco. Because From Software didn’t have the clout to publish outside of Japan and Asia, they brought the proposal to several companies, and chose Activision as they respected From Software’s vision for the game and were able to provide user testing and feedback that From Software couldn’t handle.

Because of the Japanese-themed direction of the concept, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice was going to be a Tenchu game, and was the original impetus for the project. However, after partnering with Activision, it started to become its own thing, which is when From Software decided to make it something new entirely.

Finally, Activision marketing director Michelle Fonseca ended the interview by saying that Sekiro will help Activision round out its portfolio, and learn new things to see if the company will pursue more projects of this type, apart from its usual triple-A games like Call of Duty and Destiny.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is coming to the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on March 22, 2019. We previously reported that there are no plans for microtransactions in the game.