From Software is famed for making difficult games--most notably Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and now Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice--but it refuses to add difficulty levels. Now, in an interview with GameSpot, the company's president and director of many of its games, Hidetaka Miyazaki, has explained why From's games only have one punishing difficulty level.

"We don't want to include a difficulty selection because we want to bring everyone to the same level of discussion and the same level of enjoyment," Miyazaki said. "So we want everyone … to first face that challenge and to overcome it in some way that suits them as a player."

The creator continued: "We want everyone to feel that sense of accomplishment. We want everyone to feel elated and to join that discussion on the same level. We feel if there's different difficulties, that's going to segment and fragment the user base. People will have different experiences based on that [differing difficulty level]. This is something we take to heart when we design games. It's been the same way for previous titles and it's very much the same with Sekiro."

Finally, Miyazaki said Sekiro is "probably even more challenging than previous From games." Despite the difficulty level Sekiro possesses and the similarities it bears with Dark Souls and Bloodborne, Miyazaki insists Shadows Die Twice is not part of the Soulsborne series. Meanwhile, in a separate interview, From Software confirmed to GameSpot that Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice will not contain any multiplayer.

The game was revealed during Microsoft's Xbox E3 2018 press conference. It's to be published by Activision, and it's coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC in early 2019. For more on the upcoming action title, check out our Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice gameplay impressions.