One of the many bitter pleasures of the original Dark Souls is the ability to traipse right into late game areas from the get go. The series has always been pretty open ended, but according to From Software president Hidetaka Miyazaki, the company's forthcoming Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice will be even more open ended.
“We feel like Sekiro’s probably on the higher end of the spectrum in terms of the freedom the player has to explore the world if we’re to compare it to our previous games,” Miyazaki told Game Informer. “Particularly from the mid-game onward, the world really opens up, and you have a great deal of choice and freedom about which order and way you choose to explore.”
That same report focuses on the game's hub area, the Dilapidated Temple, which will serve as Sekiro's equivalent to Firelink Shrine or Majula. Like all Souls hubs, vendors and NPCs will gradually move to the area as they're discovered throughout the world. And you're also able to fast travel back to the Dilapidated Temple via Sekiro's equivalent to bonfires: Sculptor's Idols.
You can read more coy discussion about Sekiro's game world in the original article. It's also worth mentioning as an aside, that thanks to the lack of any online functionality in Sekiro, it'll boast an ever-so-user-friendly pause button. Hurray.
