Just yesterday, the embargo for the latest Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice preview events lifted, which means there’s a whole slew of new details and info for us to dive into.
Thanks to the in-depth footage provided by several streamers in the Souls community, we’ve compiled a quick list of fast facts and all the new information we gleaned from the events. Credits to LobosJR, EpicNameBro, and VaatiVidya for the footage.
- You can swim, which is a first for Soulsborne games.
- Fall damage is extremely minimal in this game.
- Stealth is a big part of the game. You can hit L3 to crouch and sneak around, and get backstabs on enemies.
- This game does not feature a stamina system. You can spam attacks as much as you want, but you’ll still need to be mindful of your posture meter.
- As you fight, you can build up Resurrection charges that allow you to revive when you die. However, this increases the severity of the Dragon Rot disease around you, which brings us to our next mechanic…
- Unseen Aid: Upon death, there is a percentage chance that you won’t lose any of your money or skill progress. Usually when you die, you’ll lose half your skill progress and money. But if you trigger Unseen Aid, you keep everything. However, the more you die and resurrect, the worse the Dragon Rot disease becomes, and your Unseen Aid chances will go down.
- Increasing your health requires you to use Prayer Beads, which are seemingly only obtained from defeating bosses and mini-bosses. At the moment, it doesn’t look like they can be farmed.
- On the other hand, increasing your attack power requires you to use an item called Memory.
- There are ‘memory’ areas, similar to what we’ve seen with the Giants in Dark Souls II. New areas can be accessed by bringing key items to certain NPCs, and you get to visit a memory, complete with their own enemies and bosses.
- Fast travel between checkpoints is unlocked right from the beginning of the game.
- From the preview footage we’ve seen, it looks like the game is going to be fairly open and non-linear, where there are different ways and paths you can take to progress through the story.
- There is environmental music in the various game areas, not just during boss fights.
- You can hold the square button to absorb all the dropped loot from enemies.
- You can rebind your dodge and jump buttons in the game.
- You can switch between English and Japanese audio tracks.
- The protagonist, named Wolf, talks and is not a silent protagonist like in past Soulsborne games.
- Some mini-bosses need to be hit with a certain number of deathblows in order to die.
- Every enemy has a posture meter, which can be built up as you block and parry their attacks. Once the meter is full, you can hit them with a deathblow.
- However, enemies can also deflect your attacks, which builds up your own posture meter.
- You can find Gourd Seeds to upgrade the number of charges you get with your healing gourd. These basically function like the Estus Shards and Estus Flask in Souls games.
- You can acquire a skill called Shinobi Medicine that works the same way as Undead Bone Shards and Firekeeper Souls, which increase the healing effect of recovery items.
- Medicinal Pellets are consumable healing items in the game and they restore your health gradually over time. They work similarly to Life Gems in Dark Souls II.
- You can eavesdrop on enemies to glean more info about enemies or obstacles coming up soon.
One of the biggest differences between Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and the previous Soulsborne games we’ve seen from From Software is that this is not an RPG. There are only two stats that you can level up, but this is done through fighting bosses, and there doesn’t seem to be a way for players to grind levels to get more powerful.
Sekiro does allow for some variety in character builds, especially as the various combat arts and prosthetic tools come into play, but essentially, this isn’t a game where you can simply try to farm enemies to level up quickly and beat the game.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is set to be released for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on March 22.
