The new action hit Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has made it clear to our author Irie why she loves raiding in online games like Final Fantasy XIV or Destiny.
Many of you will know it: When the major MMOs are currently in a drought, you look for possible alternatives. And that often leads you to single-player games.
I belong to the people who enjoy repeatedly getting kicked in the face by a game while still having fun. That’s why I have been following every news about Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice with eagle eyes.
The developer FromSoftware is known in the gaming scene for the ruthless games of the “Dark Souls” and “Bloodborne” series. Sekiro lives up to this reputation and quickly proved to be a tough challenge.
Sekiro has shown me why I love to play raids in MMOs.
Sekiro is a game that shows no mercy
While Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice was developed in the spirit of the SoulsBorne games, it still has its own strong identity. A significant part of this identity consists of the deflect and posture systems, which are closely intertwined.
This is the game’s unique feature.
When an opponent attacks you in combat, the attack can be deflected with a well-timed block. This, in turn, damages the opponent’s posture. Once the posture bar is filled, a normal opponent can be taken out with a stylish finisher immediately—regardless of how many HP they have left. A great moment.
In combination with other mechanics like parrying, dodging, and using the prosthetic tools, a dynamic of attack and defense emerges that feels like a real sword fight.
In boss fights, Sekiro transforms into a rhythm game:
- You learn the attack patterns of the bosses
- recognize the rhythm of the hits
- find out how to react best in tricky situations
- and look for openings and weaknesses to exploit.
Progress in boss fights follows the same pattern
The further I progressed in Sekiro, the more I got traumatic flashbacks to my raid experiences in MMOs. The way I captured an inch of the bosses’ HP bar with each attempt reminds me immensely of raids.
Just like in raids, the learning experience is also the focus of the combat mechanics in Sekiro.
Fights consist of three stages:
- Entry into the fight: The initial attempts to figure out what the heck is going on and how to survive the first attacks. These initial attempts end with many quick wipes.
- Progression phase: Steady progress through the raid fight, where players slowly master the mechanics and continue to progress.
- Refinement: Usually comes after the raid group has seen all the mechanics. Now the group just needs to execute all the previously rehearsed actions cleanly.
(For an authentic raid experience, please imagine a lot of cursing during and between the individual stages.)
All these stages can be easily transferred to the fights in Sekiro. You feel your way through the boss fights until the learning pays off in the end.
The learning principle is often compared in the community to dancing or group skipping rope. You learn the steps and the rhythm until they become second nature. And such a fight looks really awesome in the end.
In Sekiro, every hit and every deflect counts, the combat animations look really cool, and you are rewarded for playing cleverly and using your tools well.
In raids, the group works like a clock, every mechanic is executed perfectly. I just love that.
Developers avoid “artificial difficulty” in Sekiro and raids
Since my entry into multiplayer games with Ragnarok Online, I have played a lot of endgame content. The tough raids in MMOs are not just a way for me to get good gear.
Especially epic raid battles like in Final Fantasy XIV or King’s Fall and Wrath of the Machine from Destiny, which are loaded with mechanics, have been so much fun for me that I love to run them, even if I can no longer get a reward from them.
Puzzle-solving the mechanics of these raids represents another parallel to Sekiro for me. Good tricky mechanics create an additional layer of difficulty that does not feel artificial.
The same happens in the SoulsBorne games. The difficulty of these games is not artificially generated by tweaking damage numbers like in many other games. Rather, the difficulty arises from a combination of various factors.
A large part of the game world and every positioning of the enemies play an important role: Is the room in front of you apparently empty at first glance? Then it’s a trap. Is an enemy turned away from you? That’s also a trap. In such cases, you can assume with 99% certainty that you will be jumped from behind.
The goal is to convey the feeling that this world you have landed in is indeed dangerous. And while other games give players the cool feeling of power fantasy, the SoulsBorne games are deliberately designed to hit people with the strength of Mike Tyson.
Players should learn the new rules of the game and find out how to overcome the challenges of the game in their own way. Banging your head against the wall repeatedly doesn’t help much.
Just as in raids, it won’t help to completely ignore the mechanics. You will only end up with frustration, but no victory.
Patience is important if you want to be successful
The fights in Sekiro and in MMO raids are characterized by a steep learning curve. You are forced to feel your way through the fights and learn from your mistakes.
That’s why Sekiro and raid fights require a high tolerance for frustration from players.
Experienced raid groups enter the tough raids with the mentality to collectively bite the dust often. They know exactly what to expect and mentally prepare themselves for it. In FromSoftware games, one also expects to be initially expertly dismantled by the bosses.
It is not a sign that you are simply bad; rather, the quick defeats show that you do not yet have enough knowledge to master the fight.
Therefore, it is important not to let failure discourage you. And the feeling of success after progress is all the more satisfying.
Players remember not the loot, but the combat experience
For me, the reward after the victory has always been cool, but the real fun during the fight has always outweighed it.
Listen to how the guys in the video escalate during the kill (beware, they are loud). They have been working on the fight for 4 weeks. What drops from the chests does not matter to them at that moment.
In the end, you remember more the feeling you had when the opponent finally went down. In my raid groups, it was also often said: “Hey, do you remember that one boss? What a jerk! But he was really fun!”
Different genres convey a similar feeling
Of course, Sekiro and the MMOs where I raid could not be more different. Just the fact that raids are fought in groups while you rely on yourself and your reflexes in Sekiro plays a crucial role.
Nevertheless, I think that the experience of combat is a major commonality between the two. Breathtaking and cool boss fights are one of the most important focal points of the latest FromSoftware games and every epic raid.
In that moment of a fight, when the boss has only a few percent of HP left, you are mashing the keys so hard that your fingers hurt, and your adrenaline levels soar, Sekiro and raids are very similar.
And if your MMO is currently in a drought in PvE and you enjoy getting kicked in the face as much as I do, check out Sekiro. It was worth every cent for me.
