Since the soulslike community is quite diverse, I can imagine many different opinions to emerge here. Curious to hear your thoughts!
I’d take Sekiro 2 any day of the week. Bloodborne 2 would be amazing, but Sekiro, to me, is the pinnacle of the genre and has so much untapped potential that’s laying dormant. Bloodborne is too similar to your “standard” soulslike compared to Sekiro, even though I love Bloodborne as well.
Sound analysis of why Bloodborne 2 would work well. Concerning Sekiro 2, the true ending definitely leaves the narrative open as to what happens next.
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Kuro has been cradled by the Divine Child of Rejuvenation so they and Wolf can bring back the Dragon of West to the West - likely China, maybe Korea. Considering they harbour so much power in them and how coocoo bananas everyone went to gain the Dragon’s Heritage power, who’s to say the people at the origin of it aren’t as well? Maybe the country went into complete disarray with its disappearance? I think there’s a lot to explore left. The other endings don’t work as well, of course.
Then there’s also the possibility of a prequel with Tomoe as the protagonist. She’s made out to be powerful samurai that’s only ever mentioned in passing. She’s the only one who could almost defeat Isshin. I feel like there’s something you could do with that premise.
But I’d have to agree that Bloodborne 2 would make a lot of sense. Dark Souls 4 would kinda undermine the narrative portrayed throughout the series, ER is also pretty much finished, I feel like.
Interesting points on the Sekiro ideas!
I suppose a viable approach for a Tomoe sequel could play into her real-life namesake? Tomoe Gozen lived several centuries prior to Sekiro’s implied time period, but with the (possibly) historical person retiring from war to a life of Buddhist monasticism and the game character being involved with the search for immortality, I feel like someone more knowledgeable about Buddhism and Japanese folklore might have a good avenue to connect the two. A game playing as 12th-century Tomoe in a similarly-fantasticised Genpei War could work, yeah!
Damn, didn’t know that. I guess it ties in quite well into the story then