Ah, yes. We’re all familiar with that glorious feeling of finally besting a tough boss. xQc took that feeling to a whole new level, when he finally triumphed after six hours of trying to topple Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice’s last boss.
Now, Sekiro isn’t a title that holds the players hands and gently walks them through tutorials and training areas until they’re comfortable with every single nuance of the mechanics. Yes, on-screen prompts briefly explain the finer points of play, but it’s up to you to implement what you’ve learned against the ruthless enemies.
What else would you expect? This is a title from the Dark Souls developer FromSoftware, after all. Sekiro offers the player far more options in terms of mobility, along with a more fluid combat system, but otherwise, the Souls vibe is very, very strong here. The standard enemies show absolutely zero mercy, and there’s even less reason to expect any from the bosses.
There are always those players who take a just for bragging rights approach. Whose skills are so finely-honed that they can take out every boss in the game wearing starter gear while taking nary a hit. Most of us mere mortals could never hope to reach that level, though, and it looks as though xQc certainly can’t.
Now, we can sympathize, we really can. After all, they don’t call Isshin ‘The Sword Saint’ because he sucks with a blade. They call him that because he can slice your hopes and dreams into pastrami in about an eighth of a nanosecond. As snarky Redditors report, this is how the battle went for xQc for about six hours, before he finally prevailed. That last dramatic and rather grim execution move must have felt so, so good.
The question is, if shadows die twice, how many times did xQc die? Of course, it doesn’t matter in the end. This is why we gamers like to challenge ourselves — the feeling of finally emerging triumphant is like nothing else.
Elsewhere on Reddit, a quick consensus seems to suggest that it takes the average player a good hour or two to take Isshin down, so xQc was well behind the curve there. Still, that’s the beauty of tough video game bosses: they can kill you over and over again, but you only have to win once. Keep trying!
NEXT: Mod Gives Sekiro A Boss Rush Mode So You Can Experience True Suffering
