Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is not a "Soulsborne" game. It's weird I see people consider it Soulsborne despite all the major things the Soulsborne games tend to have that Sekiro lacks, yet stuff like "it's hard" and "there's checkpoints" is enough for them to count it.

I'm not saying there aren't some similarities between Soulsborne games and Sekiro, even I have called Sekiro "Soulsborne adjacent". But if what Sekiro has is enough to call it Soulsborne, then I can legitimately say that the Souls games are all just Armored Core games. And I can point out a number of thematic and gameplay similarities between Souls and AC.

I won't ask why people think Sekiro is a Souls game, it was already a meme to say "X is the Dark Souls of Y" and I've seen people say they Souls were among the first games they made (which is like saying Capcom's first game was Resident Evil) or some form of "They only make souls games" despite a number of non-Souls titles being released between Demon's Souls and Nightreign, including 3 Armored Core titles, Deracine, and a Monster Hunter spin-off. Granted, when Armored Core 6 came out people called it basically a Souls game as well so... it's all Souls.


I could make some King's Field and Shadow Tower comparisons too but I've only played KF 2 and 3 but haven't touched Shadow Tower.