9 Video Games That Used Everything You'd Learned Against You

8. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Since we’re on games that wanted you to play them completely differently than what you’d expect, let’s talk about Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

By Sekiro’s release in 2019 we were pretty across what to expect from a FromSoftware game. They’d be hard, beautiful, and require a certain way of engaging in combat--namely, turtling around enemies and having a solid shield game. Well, two out of three of those were true for Sekiro. But despite its visual similarities and fearsome bosses, Sekiro called for an entirely different approach to combat. If you try to enter combat in the same way you would a Souls’ game, you’re in for a bad time.

In Sekiro it’s essential that you master your one weapon, the katana, and there’s no stamina bar to account for.

Your dodge is also short and subsequently your invulnerability period fairly insignificant so you’re better off trying to break your opponent’s Posture metre by using deflection properly. You either already know how to fight in Sekiro or need a whole other list article for it but, suffice it to say, unaware Soulsborne players were put super off-balance when they first tried out Sekiro.