The biggest difference from Dark Souls and Bloodborne is the combat system.
You could say Sekiro leans more towards ACT, also known as an action game.
While Bloodborne and Dark Souls lean more towards RPG elements.
The main reason for this is that the birth of Sekiro in his previous life was actually initiated as a spiritual successor to a game called 'Tenchu'.
But as the game development progressed, Hidetaka Miyazaki eventually decided to make Sekiro an independent game.
Unlike the Souls-like games, and unlike Tenchu.
Sekiro is just Sekiro.
Although it still has the Demon Bell corresponding to bonfires and lanterns, and enemies will respawn after reviving.
But the different combat system directly brings a different game experience.
If players new to Bloodborne and Dark Souls could still find some unconventional ways to win without improving their skills,
Then in Sekiro, such a phenomenon is completely non-existent.
Butterfly Lady, Genichiro Ashina, then later the older Owl and the Owl from three years ago, as well as Emma and Isshin Ashina.
It can be said that in any ending route, players will encounter true teachers, teachers who cannot be skipped with unconventional methods.
If you can't beat them, you just can't beat them, there's no way around it.
Therefore, Sekiro is also considered the most difficult game by many players.
In the office, Hector, Marcus, and others looked at the detailed design concept drafts in their hands and were all stunned.
The illusion from the previous meeting completely disappeared when they saw the game's numerical design.
It's obvious that in terms of difficulty, Sekiro can definitely be considered at the top of the Souls series.
Only the Death Mode of Dark Souls could perhaps compete with it.
"Boss Lucas, this difficulty!?" Hector felt a headache looking at Lucas.
He could already imagine it just by thinking about it.
"This difficulty is very reasonable. After all, we don't want players to suffer too much in the first playthrough. More difficult modes will be placed in the second and third playthroughs," Lucas said with a smile.
In terms of game content, Lucas also adopted the complete Sekiro version from his previous life.
In addition to the two higher difficulty levels that unlock consecutively after completing the game, the Shura, Severance, Owl at the End, Genichiro in the Heart, and Isshin in the Heart, as well as the seventeen consecutive battles unlocked after three consecutive battles, will all be available to players in the initial version.
Of course, that's not all. Lucas actually has further plans.
After all, player challenges are limitless.
And honestly, for players who are slightly trained, these difficulties aren't much.
After all, Sekiro is also a game where you have to memorize patterns. As long as you can endure death, you can definitely pass.
For example, Genichiro's moves are quite fixed. If you maintain distance and drink from the gourd to heal, Genichiro in the first two phases will shoot arrows, and if it's the Way of Tomoe Genichiro, he will leap and thrust. You can easily defeat him by recognizing and parrying with medication.
There's also the Butterfly Lady. By rotating your dodge, you can interrupt her attacks and wear her down for an infinite cycle.
So, similar to the AI-designed Death Mode in Dark Souls,
Lucas also plans to release a more challenging 'Despair Mode' for Sekiro later.
Of course, that's something to do after the game is released. For now, the focus is on the game's content itself.
"Besides the numerical design and level design, Hutu, you'll be responsible for coordinating the art aspect." Lucas said to Hutu and Anna beside him.
Although Sekiro's map design in his previous life was excellent, there were still all sorts of bugs.
For example, if you go to the Water Mill first, defeat the Divine Dragon, learn to dive, and then use a double jump from the bridge in front of Ashina Castle to the wall next to it, you can turn the entire map into an ocean, and freely swim wherever you want to go, commonly known as sky swimming.
These are bugs in the map design, and Lucas plans to fix them in the game.
As for some ways to skip content, Lucas doesn't plan to modify them.
For example, using the Divine Confetti to assassinate the Phantom Ashina in the Water Mill is part of the game's skill mechanics.
Of course, a more important point is that for those who like to skip content, there will always be a few "old professors" who will teach them how to behave in later stages.
"Also, art department, pull some people. It's different from before. This time, we need to make the player's death screen look good. We're tentatively setting it at 99 artistic fonts for the word 'death'."
"At the same time, similar to Detroit: Become Human, where players can get an achievement trophy for collecting all of Connor's different death methods, in Sekiro, each time a player dies, a different font will randomly appear. Collecting 99 'death' fonts will earn a trophy."
Lucas said, thinking, to Rachel.
After all, unlike Dark Souls and Bloodborne, where you have one life and return to the bonfire or lantern upon death,
In Sekiro, a player might see death twice, or even thrice, in a single battle.
In this situation, we can make them die more peacefully.
Also, on the VR platform, the current Nebula Games platform, although it only supports the official creative workshop, some simple text creative mods can be opened to players.
For example, changing 'death' to 'loser'.
Of course, considering players who collect trophies, this 'death' is also a progression trophy. The 'death' fonts that have appeared will slip down the order, and it will only be truly random after a full cycle.
Listening to Lucas's words, Rachel was speechless.
Boss Lucas, you are truly too considerate.
.........
And so, the difficulty of Sekiro was set. Although Lucas said the difficulty would be adjusted based on feedback during development, with appropriate nerfs or buffs.
However, Hector and the others always felt that the word "nerf" should be removed from that sentence.
Only buffs, no nerfs!
Marcus and the others could only silently pray for the players, hoping they would fend for themselves.
Meanwhile, in the gaming industry, the impact of BioShock had not yet dissipated.
Although BioShock was considered uncopyable by many game designers.
For large game developers, it actually had a profound impact on some small and medium-sized game designers.
Especially for game designers who pursue art, BioShock was practically deified as a classic.
There were many excellent works, but also some mediocre ones.
However, they all unananiomously chose the same direction, which was tragedy.
After all, tragedies always leave a deeper impression. Most of the great works throughout history end in tragedy.
Coupled with Lucas's famous nickname in the game industry, and the tone of the recent BioShock duology.
This trend unknowingly swept over to Lucas.
(End of chapter)
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