After John stepped out of the room, the remaining team members clustered together to break down his proposal for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Even without the official Game Design Document in hand, the core team wasn't entirely in the dark. John's brief overview gave them a clear enough picture to grasp the game's brutal design philosophy.
"Just thinking about playing this makes me feel like players are going to suffer mental breakdowns," Koch muttered, shaking his head.
As game developers, they didn't need a finished product to see the vision; the parameters and gameplay mechanics John outlined painted a vivid image in their minds.
They were especially struck by the unforgiving balance tweaks John had highlighted, specifically, stripping away standard defense mechanics and ensuring normal mobs hit like freight trains, taking off a quarter of the player's health bar with a single swing.
In John's own words: Even if you max out the protagonist's stats, basic soldiers will still bring you down in two or three hits. Bosses? They'll leave you clinging to a sliver of health after a single combo.
Hearing that, the lead numerical designer stared blankly into space, visibly shaken. Is this really okay? If players walk into this blind, won't they just get repeatedly shredded by regular mobs?
"And I can't shake the feeling that there's something sinister about the resurrection mechanic Mr. John pitched," Sequoia said, rubbing his chin with a skeptical expression.
During the meeting, John had framed resurrection as a forgiving tool to reduce frustration, giving players a second chance after getting one-shotted by a boss so they could jump right back into the fight for another round.
On paper, it sounded like a player-friendly mechanic designed to soften the game's difficulty. Yet, Sequoia couldn't help feeling that something was off.
Koch and the veteran staff exchanged knowing glances. Glancing briefly at the closed door of the conference room, Koch leaned in and whispered, "Don't overthink it. For most players, that extra life just means dying twice in a single fight."
Sequoia and the rest of the team went silent... That actually makes way too much sense.
As Koch, Evelien, Jenkins, and Roscoe sat together amid the lively debate, John flashed a subtle, knowing smile. He stood up and tapped his desk. "Alright, everyone, haven't you forgotten what time it is? Shift's over! Getting Over It and Jump King are waiting for you at home."
The room instantly went quiet. The team, who had just been passionately analyzing game design, suddenly froze, their expressions stiffening in collective dread.
Leaving his staff to wallow in their impending misery, John returned to his office.
While the core outline for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice was ready, several finer details still needed his attention. Managing the game's legendary difficulty wasn't as simple as adding an easy mode; it required giving players subtle, organic tools to adapt.
For instance, the maps would be filled with collectible items to help relieve pressure during tough boss encounters. At the same time, experience and currency earned from clearing minion camps, along with rare drops from elite monsters, would allow players to upgrade their attributes and gear.
These mechanics provided a sense of progression, but grinding stats could only carry a player so far. When the dust settled, victory still came down to raw skill and timing.
To put it in perspective: if a boss previously killed a player in one hit, a fully upgraded character might survive with a microscopic sliver of health left. Ultimately, stats provided a slightly larger margin for error; if a player lacked skill, they were still going to die.
Beyond boss fights, players should be able to stealth-assassinate a boss's first health bar, but doing so should still require actual finesse rather than just running up behind them, John thought, refining the design document on his computer. Bringing these mechanics to life required extensive preparation.
First came the visual modeling and narrative world-building. Luckily, the concept artists and narrative designers handled the heavy lifting here, polishing the lore based on John's directions before handing it back for final approval.
As for combat feel and impact, John wasn't worried. Both Martel's studio and PixelPioneers' internal development teams were more than capable of delivering top-tier combat animation. And if high workloads became an issue, they could always outsource specific action assets to top industry vendors. As long as the budget was there, fluid action execution was never a bottleneck.
Beyond overseeing Sekiro, John had plenty of other responsibilities on his plate. He needed to monitor the latest updates to the Warcraft map editor and MOD community, oversee the custom Yu-Gi-Oh! merchandise lineup launched alongside Armani and Warwick, and track the production of physical trading card collectibles. While he didn't manage every detail personally, he still had to stay informed.
On top of his daily workload, John was currently facing an overwhelming wave of "passionate feedback" from players online.
In an era dominated by streaming networks and content creators, a game's reputation spread like wildfire. A single day was all it took for the entire gaming community to grasp the true nature of a title. That was precisely what happened with Getting Over It and Jump King.
Countless streamers broke down in tears on camera, smashing their keyboards and mice in fits of rage, while millions of players flooded John's official social account with furious, emotional messages.
Faced with this digital avalanche, John couldn't just play dead. As a public-facing developer known for staying grounded and connected with his community, completely ignoring his audience wasn't an option. Before long, John posted a new update to his social account, complete with a carefully laid trap:
"Why are 'Getting Over It' and 'Jump King' so brutally difficult? Because I wanted to share a deeper truth with everyone: whether in gaming or in real life, your greatest enemy is always yourself. On a side note, development on our next title is already underway, an intense action game designed to give everyone an experience unlike anything before: 'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice'."
Whether the players actually bought his philosophical justification didn't matter; John was starting to believe it himself. More importantly, teasing the next title was an effective way to divert the community's outrage. As for what would happen once Sekiro actually launched... well, he'd cross that bridge when he got to it. There was always a way out!