Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - Xbox One

The arrival of a new game by FromSoftware, the studio behind the equally adored and cursed Dark Souls series and Bloodborne, means that gamers everywhere are soon going to be grinding their teeth and pulling out their hair. For players who like a breezey, casual gaming experience that probably sounds terrible, but hardcore gamers know that its FromSoftware's perfectly balanced, punishingly brutal difficulty curves that make their games such a masochistic delight.

This time the world that will be trying to kill you is 1500s Sengoku Japan, a period of deep conflict and bloody warfare. You play as Sekiro, a shinobi in the service of a boy master. When he's betrayed, relieved of his arm and left for dead you wake in a dilapidated temple and discover that a strange monk has gifted you a prosthetic. From now on you'll be known as the 'one-armed wolf' and you know you must carve a path of vengeance through Japan to reclaim your taken master.

Combat is in many ways in the same vein as FromSoftware's previous titles - there's a heavy focus on melee combat, with parrying and dodging crucial to making it out of any given encounter alive. Your prosthetic adds an additional element of strategy, however. You start with a grappling hook, but various upgrades such as firecrackers can be added to it to create additional layers of tactics for you to deploy. There's another intriguing new tool in your arsenal, too - resurrection. It doesn't come cheap, but when used well it can be used to deceive an enemy and go on a counter-offensive.

This all plays out against the backdrop of a withered and broken Japan. It's equal parts beautiful and haunting - a perfect backdrop to your many, many deaths... more