I felt cocky going into Sifu’s new arena mode. As all of my colleagues at TheGamer have heard a million times over, I previously managed to beat Sifu on its hardest difficulty without any patches or updates before it even launched, a feat that only took several sleepless nights, complaints from my roommate over some salty 2am language, and a few boss battle tantrums.
Blood, sweat, tears, and hand cramps aside, I felt like I’d more than earned my Sifu stripes. The Arenas expansion would be nothing but a reminder of how I’m basically TheGamer’s version of Po from Kung Fu Panda. When he was the Dragon Warrior and not a bumbling idiot, obviously. Skidoosh.
My initial cockiness was immediately satisfied as I stepped into the first of 45 new challenges, which put me in a backyard arena against five waves of enemies and tasked me to die as little as possible. A few minutes and a shiny three-out-of-three stars rating later, and I was grinning like a fool while already planning my victory lap around the office Slack.
Then the next challenge came about, a simple timed level that judged how fast you can beat another few waves of enemies. After a few swears and an already-aching trigger finger, I’d managed two-out-of-three stars. I laughed it off as a “close one” and promised I’d get the final star later after checking out a few more challenges.
The third arena asked me to take out specific enemies while still having to deal with a few surrounding goons. This is where my ego really took a tumble as the one star ratings began rolling in. I side eyed my PC and realised I still had 42 challenges left to go, and I could already feel my black belt fading away into a far less accomplished colour.
The final and hardest challenge from the first set of arenas is one big reference to Neo’s fight against an army of Agent Smiths in The Matrix Reloaded, complete with slow-motion coolness whenever I guarded against the onslaught of suited clones. Said slow-motion didn’t help much, though, as I still got my arse handed to me over five different attempts, before scoring another embarrassing one star score. Maybe that’s why they called Neo “The One”.
Perfectionist that I am, I haven’t gone back to finish that challenge just yet, instead moving onto the next set across a slew of new arenas. Considering this update is free, I’m impressed by how much has been stuffed into it. There’s a lot of variety, whether you’re capturing areas on a map, being given a weapon with unlimited durability, or having your guard disabled in the midst of combat.
So far, I’ve completed 30 of the 45 on offer, with varying degrees of success. Sifu has always demanded perfection from its players and that hasn’t changed here. It’s something I’ve always loved about the game, but if that wasn’t your speed before, I don’t think that’s going to change.
It’s not all about going for the gold, though. Outside some of the arenas clearly geared towards perfectionists, there’s also some that are clearly just meant to be fun little references to movies, complete with new outfits for the protagonist. I’m not exactly TheGamer’s movie buff, but I recognised references to Drive, The Matrix, Oldboy, and even The Raid, which was enough of a laugh to help hold back the hot salty tears.
As challenging as some of these arenas can be, their arse kickings did push me back into re-learning Sifu’s excellent combat and grasping for that black belt once more. I’m not quite at the victory lap level yet, but experiencing my own kung fu comeback story has been a blast, and something I’m expecting to put many more hours into over the coming weeks.
I already loved the base version of Sifu and still think it has the best combat system in any game I’ve ever played. Beyond crane kicking my ego in the crotch, Arenas kept reminding me of that fact and made me fall in love with Sifu all over again. Just don’t go in like I did thinking you’re a martial arts prodigy, because Sifu is more than happy to put you in your place.