Sekiro Was Almost a New Tenchu Game

When it was revealed during E3 2018, one of the most shocking aspects of FromSoftware’s upcoming Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice was that it’s being published by Activision. Activision has partnered with Japanese developers before of course, but the company is much more well known for games like Call of Duty and Destiny. But what may also come as a shock is what Sekiro was before it was, well, Sekiro.

In speaking to Games Industry, FromSoftware’s community manager Yasuhiro Kitao revealed that Sekiro‘s development started with a plan to create a new installment in the long-running Tenchu series. Typically, Acquire is the developer behind Tenchu, but FromSoftware holds the rights as the series’ publisher in Japan. Here’s the quote from Kitao:

When we originally set out to create something different from Dark Souls and our previous titles, we thought it would be interesting to make a Japanese themed game. So from that we started going in the direction of the shinobi and ninja, and of course Tenchu was an IP with that history; that was the original impetus for this project.

Of course, as the game progressed and took on more of its own identity, a new IP was eventually created. Tenchu is a popular and storied IP, but the game FromSoftware wanted to make eventually grew beyond what a Tenchu game is.

[Source: Games Industry]