FromSoftware President Talks About How Sekiro Differs From Dark Souls

4Gamer’s talk with FromSoftware president revealed that they are working on two unannounced games at the moment, but in a different part of the interview, he also talked about how their current game in development, Sekiro, differs from their acclaimed Dark Souls series.

Here are the highlights:

Speaking of combat-based gameplay, people do tend to get the impression that Sekiro is something of a Japanese-style Dark Souls. Are you saying that’s not the case?

Hidetaka Miyazaki, president: “That’s right. Sekiro’s “kengeki” combat requires a different playstyle from Dark Souls. In Sekiro’s “kengeki” combat, you first need to fiercely clash blades with the enemy, and amidst the fierce combat, you have to find the right opening to attack the enemy’s body parts. Furthermore, effective methods of combat in each encounter are set to be even more effective than usual. That’s Sekiro’s characteristic. We wanted to give meaning to using the various methods at your disposal and working out the effective ways of dealing with enemies.”

So changing methods of combat based on the enemy type and situation will be important.

Miyazaki: “Yes. The position you take using the grappling hook, how you utilize stealth, and the tools provided with your prosthetic arm… how you fight and adapt is now important. You can’t just attack head-on all time, or hide all the time, and instead have to use everything you can to win. That’s Sekiro’s way of the ninja.”

So the demo gameplay during events felt harder because you were supposed to use tactical approaches to support your combat.

Miyazaki: “Regarding the difficulty during event demos, honestly, I believe the issue was how used you are to the gameplay. I’ll say this again, but the game design requires a different sort of approach compared to Dark Souls. I’d like people to enjoy the process of learning Sekiro’s unique approach and slowly get better in the full game.”

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice will be released on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on March 22, 2019. We recently learned of Sekiro’s ESRB rating, which you can read more about here.