'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice' Is Extremely Difficult, Gets Harder Every Playthrough

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is diverting from the Dark Souls formula despite being made by FromSoftware, but one aspect of the series will at least persist into Sekiro with the game's creative director saying it'll be an extremely difficult experience.

That's what FromSoftware president and Sekiro creator Hidetaka Miyazaki had to say about the new game in a recent interview with Game Watch which was conducted during the Taipei Game Show. The Japanese outlet spoke to Miyazaki and asked about the game's respawn system which lets players revive themselves at the same spot they died, but only for a limited number of times. In a translation of the article provided by Reddit user Zelda 2017, Miyazaki spoke about the lack of penalties associated with respawning and also shared some news that'll either be welcome or dreaded depending on how you felt about the difficulty of the Dark Souls series.

"We haven't included major penalties in the Kaisei [respawn] system itself," Miyzaki said about the game's respawn mechanic. "This game is an extremely difficult one. In the fights between ninjas as we imagine it, there will always be the risk of death and players will be sitting at the edge of their seat each time and go from one thrilling fight to the next, so in order to realize this, we ended with a game in which players die a lot (laughs)."

Google's default translation of the Game Watch article shows Miyazaki saying the game is "very difficult" instead, but regardless of the word used, the point is clear: The game is going to be a challenge.

It'll get harder every time players return to it for another playthrough as well, Miyazaki confirmed. The game director said FromSoftware added replay value and "each run through will get harder," according to the translations of his comments. Miyazaki didn't explicitly refer to it as a New Game+ mode, though such a mode was referenced months ago with Miyazaki telling Polygon it was "still taking shape." This feature isn't exclusive by any means to FromSoftware's games, but it has been a core part of the developer's Dark Souls series and Bloodborne with the game becoming more challenging during every playthrough.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is scheduled to release on March 15th for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.