Genichiro from Sekiro is no match for Havel the Rock, apparently

Dark Souls and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice collide in this character-swapping mod

It happened again! A player’s random innocuous Reddit gaming clip sent me down a (thankfully in this case fairly small but still fascinating) rabbit hole. Now it’s your turn!

Scrolling through r/darksouls in the calm before the February storm, I caught an intriguing title — Havel: Rocks Die Twice — atop an even more enticing clip. The footage showed Havel the Rock, one of Dark Souls‘ favorite sons, facing off against Genichiro Ashina, one of many oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit encounters in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

Havel: Rocks Die Twice
byu/f3m_gyro indarksouls

What sorcery is this, f3m_gyro?

Thanks to the DS3 Customization Pack 1 mod, it’s possible to play Sekiro with several familiar Dark Souls III armor sets — including the Silver Knight set, the Dragonslayer armor, Solaire’s humble attire, and yes, the Havel plating. He’s bulky yet nimble.

Much like Sekiro proper, this mod from Forsakensilver (with assists from TKGP and Zullie the Witch) isn’t new or anything. But it’s so cool. While it’s neat enough to come across character swaps on Nexus Mods, I usually need to see a well-staged screenshot or preferably a good gameplay clip to really get excited. This particular scene — a memorable battle against a fierce multi-phase foe on top of a castle — is spot-on. (For the full effect, there’s also Dark Souls III Weapon Replacements mod for Sekiro.)

That said, I also got a kick out of seeing Havel the Rock go toe-to-toe with another big lug: a certain passionate family man who’s got some of my favorite lore in all of Sekiro.

You know how I said I only spent a little time poking around online? Not exactly true.

While it was simple enough to find the mod that made this clip possible, I still ended up refreshing myself on the ways in which From Software’s games don’t — or maybe do??? — intersect. Not every last morsel of media needs a shared universe, but connective tissue can be fun. I can’t wait to circle back on this conversation post-Elden Ring.

On the other side of the SoulSekiro coin, there’s the matter of our boy Wolf. Someone crunched the numbers on how well Sekiro‘s stoic protagonist would fare against the Dark Souls series’ freakish bosses and I am beyond here for it. How wonderfully obsessive.