During the Microsoft E3 press conference From Software and Activision unveiled Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. The game was originally teased during last year’s The Game Awards, and it left everyone scratching their head because they had no clue what the heck they were looking at. Most people thought it was a sequel to Bloodborne, but it turns out that it was actually Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

The hook for the game is that players take on the role of a nameless Shinobi who loses his arm in combat to a formidable enemy. Instead of dying, however, a supernatural being brings him back and restores him arm with what From Software described as a “Shinobi Prosthetic”. The prosthetic allows the Shinobi to grapple across rooftops, scale the environment, and attain some measure of verticality within the stages.

Additionally, From Software explained that the prosthetic can be customized with different attachments and accessories to help the Shinobi during combat, including adding different weapons that allow the Shinobi to unleash different kinds of attacks. You can see what the general gameplay is like with the trailer below.

The combat looks like a much faster and more Japanese-centric approach to the Dark Souls mechanics, but with a lot more spruced up stylization of the attacks, blocks and parries.

The combat seems really solid so far, and it appears as if Seriko will be heavily themed around larger-than-life boss fights, not unlike Bloodborne or Dark Souls.

The company is definitely retaining some of the DNA that made their previous games stand out, but this time they’re going with something that seems more character driven than the blank-slate action-RPGs they’ve been producing since the PS3 exclusive, Demon’s Souls.

The game definitely looks further along and a lot more gamified than Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima. We can expect to see Seriko: Shadows Die Twice to launch at some point in 2019 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.