Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Is Getting a Major Game Balance Update Today

From Software and Activision has announced a major game balance update today for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. This update will adjust the efficiency and Spirit Emblem cost for some of the important elements of gameplay.

This will be the first major update for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice which is releasing after the launch of the game on March 22. The game has been a great success for From Software after selling more than two million copies worldwide. Despite the lack of an easy mode update, or the debate surrounding its difficulty, Sekiro has done well as a new IP by From Software.

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From Software had been testing out a beta update for a while now on Steam. They will be rolling out this new patch, which will update Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice to version 1.03 and implement some balance adjustments, improvements for performance, and various bug fixes.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice update 1.03 has received official patch notes. These patch notes for Sekiro update 1.03 mention the following gameplay balance adjustments that have been made by From Software.

Improvements to Strategic Approaches

• Adjusted the efficiency and Spirit Emblem cost of the following to encourage usage and diversity of approach:
  • Prosthetic Tools: “Lazulite Sacred Flame,” “Loaded Axe” series, “Sparking Axe,” “Lazulite Axe”
  • Combat Arts: “Ashina Cross,” “Dragon Flash,” “One Mind,” “Floating Passage,” “Spiral Cloud Passage,” “Mortal Draw,” “Empowered Mortal Draw”
  • Items: “Spiritfall” series
• Reduced the Posture damage dealt by the first hit of the Combat Arts “Senpou Leaping Kicks” and “High Monk” as it was causing more damage than intended in certain cases. Posture damage dealt in the latter-half of the combo has been increased.
• Increased the Poison build-up dealt by the Prosthetic Tool “Sabimaru” against enemies that were intended to be weak against it.
• Increased the drop rate of “Divine Confetti” for Fencers in Ashina Castle.
• Adjusted loading screen tips and tutorial text, as well as adding new text.

While these might look minor changes at first, they can have a great impact on gameplay especially if you have played a great deal of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and mastered its combat system.

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The update doesn’t just adjust gameplay balance but there are various other fixes implemented in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice patch 1.03. Minor adjustments like making the Chained Ogre have red eyes, lowering the price of information that you can get from Anayama the Peddler, and a slew of bug fixes feel like they are some welcome adjustments.

Other Fixes

• Slightly reduced Posture and Vitality of Blazing Bull in order to improve game pacing and balance time in combat.
• Lowered the price of information sold by Anayama the Peddler.
• The Chained Ogre inside Ashina Castle is now Red Eyed.
• Fixed a bug where “Gokan’s Sugar” and “Gokan’s Spiritfall” were not mitigating player Posture damage taken while guarding or deflecting enemy attacks.
• Fixed a bug where system crashes could cause save data to become corrupted on PC.
• Fixed a bug where certain enemies would sometimes stop attacking the player.
• Fixed a bug where certain actions could not be performed after reconfiguring the controls.
• Fixed certain bugs that were allowing the player to access unexpected areas, which could result in becoming unable to obtain items or make further progress.
• Fixed cases of certain text being displayed incorrectly.
• Improved stability.
• Improved performance.
• Other various bug fixes.

Sekiro update 1.03 will be released today at 6 PM PST so you can’t really download this patch for now. Once it is out, there might be some more hidden changes that could not be listed in the patch notes. You can grab Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

Source (Sekiro)