Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - GOTY Edition

Intense overall intensity
Highest flag: Violence — graphic & gore
AdventureFantasyHistorical
🏆 The Game Awards 2019 — Game of the Year

What's in it

Violence graphic & gore
High

Fast katana combat against human warriors and monstrous foes with heavy blood spray; finishing 'deathblows' show impaling and beheading strikes.

Substances depicted
Moderate

Sake (rice wine) is collected as an item and drunk by the player alongside NPCs, and one boss fights while intoxicated.

Dark themes intense
Moderate

The story centers on revenge, betrayal, forced immortality, and characters who long to die, with a bleak tone throughout.

Horror & psychological frightening
Moderate

Grotesque foes include a headless great ape that carries its own severed head, centipede-infested monks, and other body-horror creatures.

Mutilation / body horror depicted
Moderate

Some enemies are decapitated on-screen, and one boss is depicted holding its own severed head.

Animal combat combat mechanic
Low

The player fights beasts such as apes, giant serpents, dogs, and roosters as ordinary combat encounters.

Suicide & self-harm referenced
Low

Ritual self-sacrifice and seppuku appear as story elements within the samurai setting.

Who can reach your kid

What it is

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a challenging single-player action-adventure set in a fantastical version of Sengoku-era Japan, where you play a one-armed shinobi seeking revenge and protecting a young lord. Gameplay centers on precise sword duels, stealth, and posture-based parrying against human enemies and supernatural beasts. Combat is graphic, with heavy blood and finishing 'deathblow' strikes that impale or behead foes. The world is dark and often eerie, featuring grotesque monsters, plague and corruption, themes of undying immortality and self-sacrifice, and the collecting and drinking of sake. There are no microtransactions and no online or social features.

How it's framed

The game frames its violence through a samurai and shinobi lens of duty, honor, and vengeance, with the mantra 'hesitation is defeat' rewarding aggressive, skillful combat; its supernatural horrors and themes of immortality are presented as a corrupting burden rather than glorified.

Details

Developer
FromSoftware, Inc.
Publisher
Activision (Excluding Japan and Asia)
Released
Mar 21, 2019
Metacritic 88critic score (third-party) · out of 100

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