As time goes on and the video game medium changes, so do popular mechanics and game genres. For example, back in the Super Nintendo era, it seemed like every game was some sort of 2D platformer which then evolved into 3D collect-athon platformers, and then into first-person shooters by the time the Xbox 360 and PS3 came around. Currently, it seems the industry is focused on third-person action titles and one mechanic, in particular, has risen to the top in becoming one of the essential parts of the genre: parrying.
Parrying as a mechanic isn't anything new, however, its rise in popularity in mainstream gaming seems like it happened over the past five years or so to the point where, now, it often feels like every major game includes some sort of parrying mechanic. From Metroid Dread to Elden Ring to Ghost of Tsushima, the mechanic is everywhere and doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon.
The Rise of Parrying in Gaming
Parrying has been around for quite a while being heavily rooted in the fighting game genre with games like Street Fighter and Tekken being early adopters of the mechanic. It stayed relatively confined in the fighting space until games like EverQuest, Devil May Cry, and World of Warcraft adopted parrying as a way to give the games' sword combat new levels of technical skill. From there, parrying started becoming more commonplace in games that feature sword fighting, but one title brought parrying to new heights in terms of popularity: Dark Souls.
FromSoftware has frequently been cited as changing the games industry in several different ways with the creation of the Souls-like "genre." While there are many different ways that the studio impacted game making as a whole, parrying was a major part of what made high-level Dark Souls play so interesting to watch. Essentially, players could risk it all in an attempt to gain the upper hand in a fight and, if they were skilled enough, could pull it off frequently, making their playstyle much more aggressive than those found in casual play.
This continued through the conclusion of the Dark Souls series alongside the rise in popularity of parrying in other, less punishing titles. Games like Assassin's Creed, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and even Final Fantasy 15 all had their own takes on how parrying should work while FromSoftware released Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, a sword fighting game built entirely around a player's ability to parry incoming attacks. By the time Sekiro launched, however, parrying was a very common mechanic and was included in most games that featured sword combat and continues to be popular today. Games like Ghost of Tsushima, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Cuphead all have different parrying mechanics, but make it an integral part of each title's design.
What Makes Parrying a Good Mechanic
While it's unlikely that the sole reason that parrying has become such a commonplace mechanic is due to Dark Souls, following the game's release, it was easy to see why parrying was so exciting on a technical level. It's a high-risk, high reward move that, if properly executed, could completely change the outcome of a fight. What's more, the precision required to make parrying worth it meant that players had to practice: anyone who could consistently parry had put their time into honing the skill.
Parrying is also an excellent example of how to make a mundane, passive mechanic like blocking into something exciting and active. Instead of simply waiting for an enemy to attack so that the player can raise their shield and have the attack glance off of it, it gives the player an opportunity to make a move of their own, speeding up the time between blows exponentially. This made it a great addition to faster-paced titles even if they weren't as difficult as games like Sekiro or Dark Souls.
The Future of Video Game Parrying
Based on how popular it's been in recent years, there's no reason to assume that parrying as a mechanic will be leaving video games anytime soon, but that doesn't mean that it won't be changing as game genres change. Parrying has already been introduced in non-sword fighting games like Metroid: Samus Returns and Metroid Dread which both made it an integral part of completing the hardest parts of each title. Parrying also is alive and well in the fighting genre where it was first introduced and likely will stay a major part of as long as new entries are being released. Because of how integral parrying has been to the core of many fighting series, it will likely stick around far beyond the time when other genres have moved away from the mechanic.
As mentioned above, Cuphead had its own take on the parrying mechanic by allowing players to destroy incoming projectiles and use them as platforms to jump on. While that mechanic is completely different from the parrying found in something like Sekiro, it's still a new, inventive use of the ideas that make parrying interesting and will likely spawn off other ideas in similar 2D bullet-hell platformers.
Games like Ghost of Tsushima, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and the recent entries in the Assassin's Creed franchise has proven that a game's difficulty doesn't necessarily need to be high to make parrying interesting as long as there are mechanics in place like "perfect parries" which require a little bit more skill to pull off that can result in things like one-hit-kills and other combat rewards. Rewards like that incentivize skilled players to "perfect parry" as often as they can but don't punish players who can't quite get the timing down as they practice the other mechanics of the game.
It's likely that, as games evolve, parrying will continue evolving as well and eventually might be phased out for some other new, innovative mechanic, but its reach has been pretty wide and will likely always have fans requesting its addition in games.
