Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is the most recent release by developer FromSoftware, the Japanese studio with a reputation for satisfyingly difficult third-person action role-playing games. Though they've built a large audience of dedicated fans who love the challenge that comes with every new release of theirs, that doesn't mean new people aren't hopping into Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
The game can be tough but there are tips and tricks to make it more approachable. Let's now look at 10 tips for making Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice less difficult.
10 Gather Every Gourd Seed
Gourd seeds are the lifeblood of Sekiro, as players will be using them to replenish health along their journey. The game is pretty forgiving with the location of the more hidden ones, and you'll also get a gourd seed for beating almost every mini-boss in the entire game.
Exploring the land around pays off as the game rewards such behavior in meaningful ways. As you play and get better at the combat, you might start your own metagame where you try and see how few healing gourds you can use in a boss fight.
9 Learn From Death
As video game players you're often conditioned to avoid death at all costs. Many times it's communicated that if you die it means you're incompetent and you should avoid having it happen at all costs.
In Sekiro that's not necessarily the case, though there are curable penalties for dying too many times in a row. Don't let that worry you too much as it's a consequence that can easily be cured. When you die in Sekiro, take it as a learning experience and try to understand what went wrong, or what could have been done better. Turn a disappointment into a learning moment.
8 Experiment With Combat Arts
During combat that involves high-stress situations, players can often forget about all of the tools at their disposal. When it matters most, a player's instincts will more often than not fall back on the basics as they try to fight in a risk-averse way.
The combat arts in Sekiro are meant to be experimented with and, in doing so, moves that work against certain types of enemies will be discovered. Find a good variety of combat arts to use depending on the specific type of challenge or boss being faced, as arts provide an extra dimension in combat.
7 Stealth & Backstabbing
When you come across a mini-boss, the worst thing is seeing that they have two or more deathblows that you have to overcome. A skill that most players don't take advantage of is stealth kills, which can be pulled off by sneaking behind a mini-boss to deliver a deathblow.
This will immediately make the fight a lot less intimidating and more often than not will cut the challenge in half. If you can sneak up for the hit, why wouldn't you take advantage of it every time?
6 Eat Your Sugar
The sugars in Sekiro tend to fall into that category of video game items players see as invaluable. Many will save them for what they believe will be the right moment, but more often than not they'll end up finishing the game with all of them in their inventory.
You should avoid this at all costs and use the sugars whenever necessary. They can help disguise your movement so you can pull off critical strikes from behind, can embolden your defenses, and even make you stronger for a short but useful period.
5 Use The Environment
Unlike fights in Dark Souls or Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice provides players with tons of opportunities to (literally) rise above the challenge. The grappling hook on Sekiro's arm allows him to shoot into the sky given the appropriate on-screen prompt.
In many of the fights, there are tree branches, ledges, and other surfaces that allow Sekiro to secure the higher ground and hopefully score some free strikes. Other times, this move permits Sekiro to avoid the area of effect or sweeping attacks by enemies that were previously thought of as unavoidable.
4 Prosthetic Tools
The game features many different prosthetic tools that offer a varying degree of uses. On the surface, it may seem as though some of them are to be used in very niche circumstances, and though that holds true for a good number of them, that doesn't make them useless.
A boss fight can become far simpler by using the appropriate prosthetic tool. They're in the game for a reason, so ignoring them is just foolish. Once familiar with their uses, a player should be able to make an educated guess as to which enemies they'd work best against.
3 Don't Assume Anything
Sekiro, like the other Soulsborne games, tricks players into a sense of false security after a while. The developers understand how confident and capable one can feel after overcoming a great challenge, so they expect you to fall into this rhythm.
The trick is to never assume you've figured out the game until you've rolled credits. FromSoftware has some troll-like tendencies and loves to find new and exciting ways to instill a sense of humility and thoughtfulness in its player base. If it seems too good to be true, it likely is.
2 Learn Patterns
Most veterans of FromSoftware games will tell you that the way to be successful in combat is to learn the moves of your enemy. If you can memorize the 5 or 6 moves the enemy is capable of then you can be prepared and respond to what they're about to do.
FromSoftware does a great job of providing the player with "tells" that give away the type of move an enemy is about to perform. Many times specific moves are followed up by another move which makes chaining counterattacks or defensive responses that much easier.
1 Take Your Time
In the current age of video games and entertainment, consumers have been conditioning to sprint through games and binge television shows in a single sitting. Sekiro is the type of game where that type of mindset is only going to set you back and help in making the frustration set in.
Don't be uncomfortable with taking your time. This extends to many parts of the game that include studying enemy movements, exploring areas, and using the training area to get more comfortable with combat arts and ninjitsu techniques.