Here the full interview:
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...es-a-thrilling-evolution-of-the-souls-formula
Key parts:
-One of thing a lot of fans loved about the Souls series, however, was its almost archaeological approach to storytelling, the way the games didn't rely on cutscenes to dish out chunks of exposition but instead left clues hidden throughout the world for the most diligent players to piece together. Will a more character-driven story mean a more straightforward narrative? "It's a character-driven story this time, but it's not a story-driven game," Miyazaki said. "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. That aspect of From Software's previous games, of gradually picking the pieces up of a fragmented story and building those layers, building that depth, figuring things out for yourself, that's still very much intact in this game." The same goes for its physical layout - Miyazaki says Sekiro will be like Dark Souls 1 in the way that it interconnects, with multiple paths between each area - "with some exceptions." Players will also have choice in the order they complete the game in, From confirmed.
-"There are some tools that let you directly attack enemies, ones that function as weapons like the Loaded Axe, and then there are other weapons of 'accentuated taste,' and utility-based tools like the Iron-Gripped Fan that is primarily used for defence," Miyazaki told us. There are also Shuriken, which can strike enemies from afar. You can follow that particular move up with a sword dash combo, which can allow you to close gaps very quickly. All this adds up to what looks like a satisfyingly complex system, exactly the kind you'd expect from Miyazaki and the Souls team. And yet, it is definitely different. It's akin to Bloodborne's more overtly offensive Trick Weapon and gun combo, with players using primarily a katana ("and there are several sword styles associated with that," Miyazaki says) and the Shinobi Prosthetic plus the wide variety of tools that come with it.
-The enemies you'll use these skills against seem suitably varied and, most importantly, challenging. There are heavily armoured samurai generals, hard-hitting giants, snipers, and creepy old ladies who will alert other enemies in the area unless you take them out first. One particular mob of enemies caused the From Software developer playing to die and restart several times - Sekiro is punishing to those that make mistakes. "The intention is the player will die a lot," Miyazaki confirmed. "That is because of the concept of the ninja protagonist at its core; as a ninja you're a little less equipped than the average samurai or knight, you're always at death's door. We want every battle to feel intense - we want players to feel that risk and trepidation associated with battle and fighting toe to toe with these enemies. And in order to do that, the player has to die a lot. But when they die and respawn and die again, and then retry, that doesn't feel good. So, we needed something to address that, and that became the resurrection system."
- This was not created in order to make the player feel numb to death or make the player unafraid of death. We want them to still have 'the stench of death' present in every single encounter, if you will, so this is something that will be tuned and tweaked as we go forward. It's going to have its own restrictions and limitations, and we're going to have our own death penalty that fits this concept." From wouldn't go into more detail on what Sekiro's death penalty might look like, but it did say that "something different is planned." And, on the subject of healing, From would only say that though the build we saw is still in progress and pretty much everything is open to change, the way healing currently works in Sekiro is similar to Dark Souls' Estus in that "you have a set amount of charges that you can regain, and you can upgrade the amount of charges that you have."
-"One thing we're really excited for players to experience are these really tense cat and mouse sequences with these larger than life enemies."
-At the end of the tunnel we find ourselves in front of what From is "tentatively" calling a Shinobi Door. "It's opened in a special way, and it represents the fact that there will be secret paths that lead you to unexpected places and secret areas." Passing through this door we find ourselves standing in a beautiful traditional Japanese courtyard at sunset, where almost every surface is glowing red, orange and pink as cherry blossoms fall delicately from the trees. In addition to the gritty, bloody aspect of 1500s Japan, From is keen to represent the country's ancient, natural beauty. Before we can really drink it in, we step forward and initiate a boss fight. A swirling, towering, but undeniably elegant figure called the Corrupted Monk lunges forwards, laughing, grabbing, and clashing swords at a frightening rate - it's immediately clear that timing is crucial to gaining the upper hand here. Once enough damage has been exacted, however, the music becomes frenzied and the entire area becomes bathed in a blinding white light that more or less renders the entire fight in silhouette. It's an unexpected and extremely stylish touch that brings to an end an expectedly stylish demo. The Corrupted Monk was an unmistakably Miyazaki boss fight with a difference, but can we still expect that 'melancholic beauty' and reams of unspoken backstory that the director so loved to bring to the iconic boss battles of Dark Souls? "Of course!" he laughed, "But we hope this will be somewhat different from the Dark Souls approach, you won't just be going up against the big tough enemies - it does depend on the boss room and on the type of boss. There will be certain boss fights and certain larger than life enemies where you can use stealth as a tactical advantage."
-One of the things From is resolute about not borrowing from Dark Souls, however, is any kind of asynchronous multiplayer system - Sekiro will be a purely single-player experience. "We aren't considering a system similar to the messages or any asynchronous system," confirms Miyazaki when asked whether they were ever tempted to put something like that in the game. "That goes back to wanting to do something new; we don't want it to just be a repeat of what we've done before. And also it links nicely to the ninja protagonist - you can explore the map and you can find certain NPCs with certain intel and you can eavesdrop on them. You can find this info about the map, about the world, about the other enemies, about what's going on, about the lore, and you can use that to your advantage or you can use it to piece together various aspects of the story." To be clear, this lack of multiplayer also extends to summoning friends and non-NPC help, too. In previous titles you could summon other players to help you defeat a boss, and you don't have that in Sekiro - you are all by yourself. But, to counter this, there are other options that weren't there before, like stealth and special attacks that you've chosen to upgrade, and by doing so you may be able to figure out a way to defeat something that you weren't able to before. From confirms that Sekiro's progression system has moved away from using stats, saying that "something totally different will be in place," but "that feeling of getting stronger and the fact that you kill enemies to make you stronger is still going to be there." It's not really about finding and equipping armour any more, either - Sekiro will be more focused on how you upgrade, and how you'll find and gain new abilities that make you more powerful.
The move away from multiple classes is perhaps an unexpected one, but it makes sense in the context of From wanting to give players a strictly single-player focused experience. From spoke briefly about how it wanted to see "how far" it could take single player, and when you incorporate multiplayer and in particular multiple classes, it puts some limitations on the design. If you create a Dark Souls boss in a multiplayer, multi-class situation, it has to be designed in such a way that it can be taken down by a magic user, by a knight, or any combination of many different builds. So, From has made a decision in Sekiro to have just one class - ninja - and focus its enemy design to test that class specifically. In doing so, From says, it can increase the breadth of options that players have and experiment with how bosses can present new challenges. "It relates back to what we were saying about the ninja, and how they have a lot of things at their disposal and they have to master every part of their arsenal in order to confront these different situations," explained Miyazaki. "So we feel that this time, there are a lot of tools that we have prepared for the player, of various skill levels, so that if they want to run in there head-on, they can do that and clash sword-to-sword. If they want to use the Shinobi Prosthetic to outsmart their opponents and find that one weakness, they can do that. If they want to use stealth to circumnavigate an encounter and get the drop on the enemy and then engage, they can do that too, so there are a lot of ways they can approach battle - it's not just about being this high-reaction, twitch-based gamer."
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...es-a-thrilling-evolution-of-the-souls-formula
Key parts:
-One of thing a lot of fans loved about the Souls series, however, was its almost archaeological approach to storytelling, the way the games didn't rely on cutscenes to dish out chunks of exposition but instead left clues hidden throughout the world for the most diligent players to piece together. Will a more character-driven story mean a more straightforward narrative? "It's a character-driven story this time, but it's not a story-driven game," Miyazaki said. "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. That aspect of From Software's previous games, of gradually picking the pieces up of a fragmented story and building those layers, building that depth, figuring things out for yourself, that's still very much intact in this game." The same goes for its physical layout - Miyazaki says Sekiro will be like Dark Souls 1 in the way that it interconnects, with multiple paths between each area - "with some exceptions." Players will also have choice in the order they complete the game in, From confirmed.
-"There are some tools that let you directly attack enemies, ones that function as weapons like the Loaded Axe, and then there are other weapons of 'accentuated taste,' and utility-based tools like the Iron-Gripped Fan that is primarily used for defence," Miyazaki told us. There are also Shuriken, which can strike enemies from afar. You can follow that particular move up with a sword dash combo, which can allow you to close gaps very quickly. All this adds up to what looks like a satisfyingly complex system, exactly the kind you'd expect from Miyazaki and the Souls team. And yet, it is definitely different. It's akin to Bloodborne's more overtly offensive Trick Weapon and gun combo, with players using primarily a katana ("and there are several sword styles associated with that," Miyazaki says) and the Shinobi Prosthetic plus the wide variety of tools that come with it.
-The enemies you'll use these skills against seem suitably varied and, most importantly, challenging. There are heavily armoured samurai generals, hard-hitting giants, snipers, and creepy old ladies who will alert other enemies in the area unless you take them out first. One particular mob of enemies caused the From Software developer playing to die and restart several times - Sekiro is punishing to those that make mistakes. "The intention is the player will die a lot," Miyazaki confirmed. "That is because of the concept of the ninja protagonist at its core; as a ninja you're a little less equipped than the average samurai or knight, you're always at death's door. We want every battle to feel intense - we want players to feel that risk and trepidation associated with battle and fighting toe to toe with these enemies. And in order to do that, the player has to die a lot. But when they die and respawn and die again, and then retry, that doesn't feel good. So, we needed something to address that, and that became the resurrection system."
- This was not created in order to make the player feel numb to death or make the player unafraid of death. We want them to still have 'the stench of death' present in every single encounter, if you will, so this is something that will be tuned and tweaked as we go forward. It's going to have its own restrictions and limitations, and we're going to have our own death penalty that fits this concept." From wouldn't go into more detail on what Sekiro's death penalty might look like, but it did say that "something different is planned." And, on the subject of healing, From would only say that though the build we saw is still in progress and pretty much everything is open to change, the way healing currently works in Sekiro is similar to Dark Souls' Estus in that "you have a set amount of charges that you can regain, and you can upgrade the amount of charges that you have."
-"One thing we're really excited for players to experience are these really tense cat and mouse sequences with these larger than life enemies."
-At the end of the tunnel we find ourselves in front of what From is "tentatively" calling a Shinobi Door. "It's opened in a special way, and it represents the fact that there will be secret paths that lead you to unexpected places and secret areas." Passing through this door we find ourselves standing in a beautiful traditional Japanese courtyard at sunset, where almost every surface is glowing red, orange and pink as cherry blossoms fall delicately from the trees. In addition to the gritty, bloody aspect of 1500s Japan, From is keen to represent the country's ancient, natural beauty. Before we can really drink it in, we step forward and initiate a boss fight. A swirling, towering, but undeniably elegant figure called the Corrupted Monk lunges forwards, laughing, grabbing, and clashing swords at a frightening rate - it's immediately clear that timing is crucial to gaining the upper hand here. Once enough damage has been exacted, however, the music becomes frenzied and the entire area becomes bathed in a blinding white light that more or less renders the entire fight in silhouette. It's an unexpected and extremely stylish touch that brings to an end an expectedly stylish demo. The Corrupted Monk was an unmistakably Miyazaki boss fight with a difference, but can we still expect that 'melancholic beauty' and reams of unspoken backstory that the director so loved to bring to the iconic boss battles of Dark Souls? "Of course!" he laughed, "But we hope this will be somewhat different from the Dark Souls approach, you won't just be going up against the big tough enemies - it does depend on the boss room and on the type of boss. There will be certain boss fights and certain larger than life enemies where you can use stealth as a tactical advantage."
-One of the things From is resolute about not borrowing from Dark Souls, however, is any kind of asynchronous multiplayer system - Sekiro will be a purely single-player experience. "We aren't considering a system similar to the messages or any asynchronous system," confirms Miyazaki when asked whether they were ever tempted to put something like that in the game. "That goes back to wanting to do something new; we don't want it to just be a repeat of what we've done before. And also it links nicely to the ninja protagonist - you can explore the map and you can find certain NPCs with certain intel and you can eavesdrop on them. You can find this info about the map, about the world, about the other enemies, about what's going on, about the lore, and you can use that to your advantage or you can use it to piece together various aspects of the story." To be clear, this lack of multiplayer also extends to summoning friends and non-NPC help, too. In previous titles you could summon other players to help you defeat a boss, and you don't have that in Sekiro - you are all by yourself. But, to counter this, there are other options that weren't there before, like stealth and special attacks that you've chosen to upgrade, and by doing so you may be able to figure out a way to defeat something that you weren't able to before. From confirms that Sekiro's progression system has moved away from using stats, saying that "something totally different will be in place," but "that feeling of getting stronger and the fact that you kill enemies to make you stronger is still going to be there." It's not really about finding and equipping armour any more, either - Sekiro will be more focused on how you upgrade, and how you'll find and gain new abilities that make you more powerful.
The move away from multiple classes is perhaps an unexpected one, but it makes sense in the context of From wanting to give players a strictly single-player focused experience. From spoke briefly about how it wanted to see "how far" it could take single player, and when you incorporate multiplayer and in particular multiple classes, it puts some limitations on the design. If you create a Dark Souls boss in a multiplayer, multi-class situation, it has to be designed in such a way that it can be taken down by a magic user, by a knight, or any combination of many different builds. So, From has made a decision in Sekiro to have just one class - ninja - and focus its enemy design to test that class specifically. In doing so, From says, it can increase the breadth of options that players have and experiment with how bosses can present new challenges. "It relates back to what we were saying about the ninja, and how they have a lot of things at their disposal and they have to master every part of their arsenal in order to confront these different situations," explained Miyazaki. "So we feel that this time, there are a lot of tools that we have prepared for the player, of various skill levels, so that if they want to run in there head-on, they can do that and clash sword-to-sword. If they want to use the Shinobi Prosthetic to outsmart their opponents and find that one weakness, they can do that. If they want to use stealth to circumnavigate an encounter and get the drop on the enemy and then engage, they can do that too, so there are a lot of ways they can approach battle - it's not just about being this high-reaction, twitch-based gamer."
