Sekiro, Challenge, and Learning

Sekiro, Shadows Die Twice is the story of 7/8ths of a Shinobi and his swiss-army-hand stabbing their way through a host of semi-mythical beings and drinking some sake.

More realistically, it’s a dark and beautiful portrait that, in another setting, might pass for prime Magical Realism. The sights and sounds of Sekiro are a fiction, but they evoke a truth we would love to believe about lineage, duty, and honor in old Japan.

This post is not, however, about the design that makes Sekiro beautiful to any of the senses (taste included). Instead, it’s about why Sekiro, in spite of its notorious challenge level, is healthy and fun. And it IS fun. Even after Madam Butterfly has reminded you that you’re just a pup for the hundredth time and you have to walk away from your console just to cry a little, it’s fun.

It’s not suffering that makes this challenge one of quality, though. Many know the games of yesteryear where certain levels in Battle Toads or Ninja Gaiden were considered intentional self harm. They were hard, but they weren’t good. Similarly, I decry when people call games “The Dark Souls of ____” or claim “it’s fun like Dark Souls” simply because a game is challenging. Challenge alone does not make for a good or healthy play experience.

What makes Sekiro a good experience is fairness in difficulty. By this I mean that, while the game is a brutal challenge, it’s never unfair in its pursuit of adversity. At last check, I’ve died 78 times so far (with miles to go before completion). However, of those 78 deaths, only one was bull. There was one time when I clicked ledge grab and just slipped off a cliff. Every other time I died, it was my fault. I panicked. I flailed. I tried to heal without getting appropriate space. It was always me.

There is a sense in which that sucks. No one wants to be at fault when things go wrong. Take a quick look at politics these days and you’ll see how much people prefer to shift blame instead of take responsibility. But being at fault and knowing you’re at fault is also incredibly provocative. The objective clearly isn’t impossible, you just aren’t good enough. That provides a clear opportunity as well; if YOU aren’t good enough, YOU need to get better.

We all love to level up. Getting a promotion, reaching new fluency in a language, even learning a new yo-yo trick (It’s a little plastic thing with a string) makes us feel good because we know we’ve accomplished something. RPGs, particularly those with leveling mechanics, pray on this sensation. They clearly and definitively mark when you’ve improved and they give you specific bonuses to show for it. The problem is, if you’re just grinding, you’re not really learning. Your character has advanced but you (the player) have not. While this is good for a small high, it’s no more than a sugar rush. It’s not sustaining, and you’re going to need more.

Sekiro, even among From games, is different. While there are skills to earn from grinding, that’s about it. Every other upgrade requires further exploration or the death of a challenging enemy. This acts as a natural gating mechanism; your character cannot improve until you overcome a new challenge. The point of this is not to make you suffer but to make you learn (suffering for a purpose). You have nowhere to go but forward and no way to get there but to improve your IRL skills.

Which isn’t to say that, you don’t get in-game progression. Enemies yield Prayer Beads, Memories, and Gourd Seeds, all of which serve to improve your survivability in the game. Similarly, each major enemy defeated unlocks a new area or game option. But these markers of progress are not why the game loop is powerful. When you defeat a new enemy, you know, beyond any reasonable doubt, that it was because your skill has improved. You have learned to parry, you have learned to dodge, you have learned the finer points of posture. You have grown because there was simply no other way to progress.

The thing about that kind of growth is that it sticks with you. When you get up from grinding a typical RPG, the growth stays in the system. You can’t take it with you, not even to the next game. But real learning is not something that can be taken away. Though it may rust with time, it’s yours forever. It’s filling in a way that sugar will never be because you’re not grinding for a burst of energy, you’re building real muscle.

This is why the challenge of Sekiro is so justified. It is completely surmountable, you must only choose to surmount it. It’s not a game of numbers, nor is it a combination of pattern memory and prayer (Battle Toads). It is simply a set of skills to learn. Those skills, once learned, are yours to keep. They’ll last forever. They empower you like the memory of an extraordinary foe.