Hello everyone, following our introduction to the combat system, we wanted to give you an overview of our death and aging mechanics. We’ve received a lot of questions regarding our progression system, and I’ve tried answering them below!
Kung fu or “gōngfu” can refer to any discipline or skill achieved through hard work, practice, and patience. Kung fu as a martial art carries the concept of endless self-improvement, of mastery kept alive and relevant through continuous practice. In this sense, a single life is never enough to know or have kung fu.
In Sifu, our heroes, although they have been training their entire lives, are only 20 years old. They are driven by an ardent desire for revenge and will have to face a dangerous group of assassins, who have become prominent figures of the city and based in well-defended strongholds. Our young student doesn’t have the luxury of a lifetime in front of him to improve his kung fu, and as he sets out on the path of revenge, at dusk he will have to find and defeat all of his enemies in one. single night.
As we have already shown before, our hero has a powerful tool to aid him in his quest: an ancient pendant that can bring them back to life. But nothing is ever free. This pendant needs to be supplied with life energy, and each time they get back up they will grow old.
This means that you will start the game with a limited resource which you will have to manage carefully if you want to reach the end of your quest. Aging will not weaken you, but it does have a slight impact on your abilities: as you age, you will trade maximum health for offensive power. Your character model will also show your age, and you can contemplate the consequences of your actions. But getting older doesn’t have a negative impact on your abilities, and you will be able to complete the game at any age.
The ability to stand up after death gives players the opportunity to get back into the action over and over again. Before resuming the fight, the Screen of Death is actually a good place for players to take a break and reflect on their past mistakes. This is where they can unlock new skills and open up more options to deal with the situation that caused their demise. Skills can also be unlocked in Hero’s Wuguan, accessible between missions, and in shrines found across levels.
Shrines will also allow you to upgrade your character during races, giving the player a choice of different perks, each with different costs or requirements. In addition to skills, this will allow you to specialize based on what you think you need the most: more health, extra focus charges, maximum structure increase, weapon durability, and more.
These buffs aren’t lost on death, and with the ability to immediately get up when you fall, it can give you a feeling of invulnerability at first. But it won’t last, and the more you die, the faster you will age. This takes the form of a death counter: the first time you die, you will be one year old. The second time for two, the third for three, and so on. The only way to lower or reset this counter is by using one of the available shrines or defeating specific enemies such as Chapter Leaders.
Completing a chapter will reset your death counter, but your age will not be affected. There is no way to get any younger, you will only get old by falling and getting up – you can cheat death for a while, but in the end time catches up with everyone. After a certain age, you will not have enough life left to maintain the pendant, and you will not be able to stand up. Your ultimate death will result in a final end of the game.
Although you will lose your unlocked skills and upgrades at the end of a game, there are some items that persist. Each time you complete a chapter in the game, it will create a save point with the age you were when you completed it. You can skip to the next chapter or replay it to try and improve your performance. In addition to save points, you will be able to permanently unlock skills by spending more experience points, making them available immediately at the start of a new race.
Finally, the detective board, which illustrates the progress of the main character in his investigation, will keep all the information you have already gathered, even after a game is over. As well as keeping track of the various clues and story elements you’ve gathered about your five enemies, the Detective Board will also show you shortcuts, hidden rooms, or doors you unlocked in previous games, allowing you to get you back on track quickly.
These features will help you in your quest for revenge, but they are not a substitute for training and practice.
Do you have what it takes to know kung fu? To be discovered on February 8, 2022.
