Sekiro’s blood spray draws from the messy history of Japanese cinema

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice features unique enemies, beautiful landscapes, and abundant jets of blood.

Hopefully that blood is spurting from your enemies. But why does it fly so high, in such a powerful stream? In this video Patrick Gill examines the tradition of blood spray in the Japanese samurai films that heavily influenced Sekiro.

But Sekiro’s use of copious blood fountains isn’t just aesthetic. As Pat points out, it’s a holistic part of the gameplay. Just as the fights in Kurosawa films escalate to an explosive, messy act of a violence, so too the boss fights in Sekiro revolve around breaking the enemy’s posture meter and unleashing a torrent of damage all at once.

FromSoftware/Activision via Polygon

Check out the video to see other ways that video games use blood creatively, and for some myth-busting around that first big ol’ spray in Kurosawa’s Sanjuro. And make sure you subscribe to Polygon on YouTube for more videos like this.