Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice – What Happens When you Die

What happens when you die? That’s the eternal question right? Oh, sorry. That got a little philosophical for a minute. Anyway, in Sekiro you will die a lot. More than the “twice” that the name implies. Yes you will die dozens, maybe hundreds or thousands of times before you find the elusive end credits of the game. And each time you do there are different things that can happen. Here’s what happens when you die in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

The first thing that happens for most deaths in Sekiro is that you can decide to resurrect yourself or not. If you have a full resurrection ability available to you then pressing the R1 or RB button will bring you right back with about half your max health/vitality. This gets you back into the game, either able to keep fighting a boss or rush off to heal yourself and get to a Scultor’s Idol. Either way, you survived your own “death”, but what happens now?

Some bad stuff actually. When you use your resurrection ability it permeates something called Dragonrot. This disease will infect the Sculptor first, then appear in anyone you have encountered along your journey in Sekiro. Once they are infected they will simply cough most of the time, with their usual dialogue and possibly a quest locked away behind the Dragonrot disease. It will also eventually lower the chances of receiving Unseen Aide, which gives you a small chance to avoid the other negative effects of dying in Sekiro (keep reading for more). What can you do about it? See how to cure Dragonrot right here.

So, those other effects. They don’t kick in until you really die. Like that you die and choose to not resurrect, or don’t have one available to you. In this case you will die and return to the last Sculptor’s Idol you interacted with. However, you will also lose half of the money or Sen that you are carrying (wallets do not count), plus half of the XP you have toward the next skill point. The only way to avoid this is with Unseen Aide, which has a 30% chance of preventing it unless it has been lowered by Dragonrot.

And that’s what happens when you die in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.