Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is getting a big free update on October 29, in part to celebrate five million copies sold, and it's adding some highly requested features including new skins and a boss rush.
The headliners are the Reflections of Strength and the Gauntlets of Strength. The former will let you rematch any boss you've already defeated by accessing their memory via Sculptor's Idols, while the latter will challenge you to one-life boss rushes against multiple bosses. It sounds like there are multiple Gauntlets containing different bosses, so don't expect a one-and-done fight. How long until somebody beats the hardest Gauntlet without taking any damage?
Completing these challenges will unlock new skins for the Wolf, with two coming from Gauntlets and a third awarded just for beating the game (which you'll presumably get if you've already beaten it). Getting ahead of questions about microtransactions, Activision stressed that "all outfits are purely cosmetic in nature: They are accoutrements to your achievements within Sekiro."
To help you tackle these bosses and other tricky areas of Sekiro, From Software is adding a robust message system similar to the ones seen in the Dark Souls games. They're called Remnants, and in addition to text, they also let you record up to 30 seconds of movement. Remnants sounds like a proactive version of the bloodstain recordings seen in Souls games, which is pretty cool. And as with later Soapstone messages, you'll be healed if someone upvotes your Remnant.
"After a player records their Remnant – whether it is an epic takedown of an enemy or a flawless demonstration of a tricky movement technique – it can be uploaded along with a written message so that other community members can play it back," Activision says. "Through these Remnants, one could hope that they or others may gain the knowledge and further insight to overcome their current obstacle."
This will all be free for new and existing Sekiro players on October 29. At this point, we didn't expect to see more Sekiro content, but it's always better late than never. These features sound great, and the Gauntlets in particular will probably pull me back for another playthrough.
As it happens, Sekiro should be launching on Stadia around the time of this update, if not before.
