Why did Activision publish Sekiro?
Because this time FromSoftware went looking for a partner itself, and kept Japan for its own house.
For Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, Western partners had come to FromSoftware, or inherited the game. For Sekiro the studio reversed the flow: it shopped the project to publishers, Miyazaki’s joke is that their list ran from A to Z and ended at Activision, and Activision, to the studio’s own surprise, said yes, taking worldwide publishing outside Japan and Asia. FromSoftware published Sekiro itself in Japan; Cube Game handled the rest of Asia-Pacific. It remains the studio’s only Activision title, a one-game alliance between the Souls studio and Call of Duty’s house, sealed by a game with no guns in it at all (its shinobi prosthetic notwithstanding).
THE PUBLISHING MAP
Sekiro · region by regionJapan · FromSoftware
Home territory, self-published as with Dark Souls and, later, Elden Ring. The pattern of the studio’s maturity: partners abroad, sovereignty at home.
The West · Activision
Marketing weight and distribution, plus one creative footnote in the record: the subtitle Shadows Die Twice survived at Activision’s request.
Asia-Pacific · Cube Game
The third seat at the table, often dropped from summaries: publishing these games is a patchwork, and the patches are printed on the boxes, which is why this Library reads boxes.