In many ways, Hidetaka Miyazaki’s 2019 video game Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is different from the list of games he has worked on throughout his career. Miyazaki, being FromSoftware’s president, has worked on various Soulslike games, however, Sekiro, wasn’t a Souslike game. That’s not the only thing that makes Sekiro different from games like Elden Ring as Miyazaki once revealed the main difference between his Soulslike games and Sekiro.
The story of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice focuses on a shinobi known as Wolf and throughout the game the focus is on that character. In Miyazaki’s Soulslike games, the storyline was carried forward by non-playable characters. Thanks to a story that focuses just on Wolf and his revenge, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is different from anything Miyazaki has worked on to this day.
Hidetaka Miyazaki pointed out this one thing that makes Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice different from his Soulslike games
In 2018, Hidetaka Miyazaki talked to EuroGamer about his 2019 action-adventure game, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, explaining how it is different from the games he has worked on,
“With this ninja protagonist, he is the central character to the story, and that’s how Sekiro differs from previous From Software titles, in that we have that core character to focus on.”
In Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, players control a shinobi known as Wolf, who attempts to take revenge on a samurai clan that imprisoned him and kidnapped his lord. The game was praised for stealth gameplay, combat, and setting.
The game has won numerous Game of the Year awards, including the Game Award for Game of the Year. After just 10 days of its release, over two million units were sold and eventually, the number reached five million by July 2020. The game certainly played a key role in popularising this genre as it paved the way for various developers to create similar games.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has a character-driven story
Unlike Soulslike games, the game had a more character-driven story. In particular, the Dark Souls series relies less on cutscenes as various clues are left hidden in the environment and the story eventually unfolds. Miyazaki further explained this point,
“It’s a character-driven story this time, but it’s not a story-driven game – The player isn’t going to be led down one linear path and have the story spoon-fed to them by many many cutscenes or anything like that.”
This pattern has also been witnessed in 2022’s Elden Ring and this many fans believe that this character-driven story makes Sekiro better than Elden Ring. Sekiro became a fan favorite because of its exceptional focus on things like stealth, exploration, and engaging boss battles, though there were some complaints regarding the game’s difficulty level. The game was released for the PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in March 2019.
