I've been kind of burned out on Souls-adjacent games for a while, but Sekiro has been an absolute delight so far. Still plainly built on the same formula, but does so many important things to distinguish itself.
Stealth feels like a remarkably natural fit. Souls games have always had a little bit of "how can I selectively kill/manipulate/aggro mobs to make this encounter easier on myself" in their blood, but now it's been formalised into something with explicit tools and systems and it's way better this way. I'm not just throwing knives at one guy who's barely in targeting range and slowly luring him away from his friends.
The character-action-y combat takes some getting used to, and I'm still not always sure exactly what it expects from me, but that's sort of exciting in a way. It's the kind of game that makes you think "I bet I could chew through this boss in seconds if I knew what I was doing" (although the classic backpedal/dodge/counter routine works just fine, too)
