5 Years Later, FromSoft’s Most Underrated Game Is Still a Brutal Masterpiece
'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice' breaks the 'Dark Souls' tradition with one of the best action combat systems ever made. It still holds up five years later.
FromSoftware
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If Dark Souls is a game of shields, Sekiro is a game of swords. Thriving in Dark Souls requires a good defense, whether that means using your actual shield, dodging attacks, or preparing for battle by leveling up and allocating stats. Thriving in Sekiro is all about offense. Whether you’re facing a rifle-toting guard or a giant, monstrous gorilla, the only way out is to stand inches from your opponent, stare into their eyes, and cut your way through. Released on March 22, 2019, Sekiro is an outlier in FromSoftware’s catalog, and a bold inversion of the Soulsborne tradition that still stands on its own five years later.
It’s hard to overstate the thrill of playing Sekiro for the first time. By the time it was released, FromSoftware had already established its formula in Demon’s Souls, three Dark Souls games, and Bloodborne — which had plenty of its own twists but still felt more or less like a Souls game. Sekiro was something entirely new. We knew going into it that there would be no leveling up to overpower enemies, no multiplayer to get out of tough jams, no magic builds to cheese through difficult encounters. Other than that, everything that confronted us was a surprise. And given FromSoftware’s skill at pushing players to their limits, surprises in its games can be terrifying.
Combat in Sekiro is an intricate dance of parries and slashes.
FROMSOFTWARE
Playing Sekiro today is a different experience. With five years of spoilers and hindsight, Sekiro is a known quantity. But even if you know some of what you’re signing up for now, making your way through its cursed version of Sengoku-era Japan is still bound to be full of unexpected turns. The reveal of the final boss, the Guardian Ape’s second phase, what exactly is up with those immortal monks — there’s still more than enough to make you fumble your controller in surprise.
The biggest surprise of all might be just how good it still feels. The Souls series is built on methodical, sometimes clunky, combat. Learning to navigate your decaying body in combat against much more capable foes is part of its charm. Sekiro makes you as fearsome as any Dark Souls boss. Armed with a katana and a collection of tools from fireworks to axe blades grafted to your prosthetic arm, you are a force to be reckoned with. Beating a boss in Dark Souls feels like an impossible victory against a force of nature. Doing it in Sekiro feels inevitable. This time around, you are the scariest thing in the game.
A lot of that comes down to the swords vs. shields distinction. In Dark Souls, you block attacks to protect yourself. In Sekiro, you deflect them to leave your enemy vulnerable. At its best, Sekiro’s combat feels like a bloody rhythm, each perfectly timed parry bringing you one step closer to winning with a single, fatal strike. Sekiro is an incredibly difficult game — one many consider FromSoftware’s most challenging — but the feeling of playing it isn’t one of despair, but of overwhelming power. You can beat anything the game throws at you. All it demands is perfection.
