Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice was almost a Tenchu game

Dark Souls developers FromSoftware recently said in an interview with Japanese magazine Famitsu (and unearthed by Reddit user DrowningOtsdarva) that their recently unveiled samurai game, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, could have been a Tenchu game.

Tenchu is stealth ninja game originally developed by Acquire. From Software currently own the rights to the ninja action game and it seems like they were considering releasing another instalment in the franchise, but changed their mind at the last minute according to an interview with the game's director, Hidetaka Miyazaki.

"There was the option to make it a Tenchu game, but Tenchu was originally a series made by many different developers, each with their own characteristics," the post says. "They thought they would end up imitating them in the end, so they gave up on that."

They may have given up on the idea of releasing another Tenchu game but from what we've seen of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice the inspirations are clearly there. Interestingly, the post also mentions that there are no plans for an online system for the game and that it will instead focus on the single-player story. This suggests the new game might not have the usual online system used in the Dark Souls series.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is set to release in early 2019 on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. You can read more about it here.