From Software Talks Why Activision is Publishing Shadows Die Twice

From Software is departing from the depressing European-styled dark-fantasy world of Dark Souls in their upcoming game, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and are instead embracing a depressing Japanese-style dark fantasy world of ninja, samurai, and really big dudes with big swords. It’s looking to be a pretty big change, and not just from the gameplay and style of the game, but also from the developmental side, as From Software is dropping the old Dark Souls publishers, Namco Bandai, and are instead working on Shadows Die Twice with Activision, of Destiny/Call of Duty fame.

A strange choice, it seems, but one that was defended by From's community manager Yasuhiro Kitao in a chat with GamesIndustry.biz, who specified they were looking for an explicitly western publisher for this decidedly Asian game.

"Initially when we had this project proposal we took it to a number of companies. We don't have the clout to publish outside of Asia and Japan, and so Activision was one of the companies we approached and one of the companies who said they would like to talk. And they absolutely loved the idea; they loved the project right from the start. They really respected our vision, and also along the way they were able to provide user testing and feedback that we simply can't handle so it was really beneficial."

It makes sense that Activision would be excited about this game, even if it’s a departure from their usual multiplayer-focused fare. The From Software team is a very safe bet, one that Sony really dropped the ball on when they had a chance to get the Dark Souls series to themselves and failed.

By the way, one other fun fact they revealed was that Shadows Die Twice started as a Tenchu remake, but it quickly evolved into its own thing as they got carried away by the project. So that’s cool.

Anyway. The game is set to launch on March 22 of next year, so that’s gonna be neat.