How Aging Works in Sifu

Why Do You Age in Sifu?

In Sifu, the protagonist uses an artifact to bring themself back to life after each death so that they can hopefully reach and defeat the game’s main antagonist and exact their revenge.

However, the price to pay for each resurrection is time. The artifact takes years off the protagonist’s life each time they use it to revive themself. Thus, they grow older over time as they attempt to fight their way through the entire antagonist organization.

The equation is not quite as simple as 1 death = 1 year, though. Each time you are defeated in Sifu, your “Death Counter” increases by 1 as well. So, the first time you are defeated, you will age up by one year, but the second time will add two years, the third death will add three, and so on.

Additionally, with each decade that you age (30, 40, 50, etc), you will lose part of your max health. In exchange for your dwindling health, however, your veteran years contain the wisdom required to hit harder, allowing you to deal more damage.

Can you De-Age in Sifu?

Unfortunately, the answer here is a vehement “No”. It is impossible to gain back any years that you’ve lost throughout the game. This is where most of the challenge comes from.

You can, however, rewind time in a sense by replaying chapters. You will always be Age 20 at the start of the Squats chapter.

If you then complete it at Age 30, you will always be Age 30 whenever you start the second chapter. If you complete the Club at age 40, then you will always be Age 40 at the start of the third chapter, and so on.

If you then find yourself struggling to reach and defeat the final boss while under 75 years old, you can replay the Squats and try to finish it at a younger Age. You could even master the Chapter and complete it while still at Age 20.

You will then always be able to start the Club chapter at Age 20 too. The game will remember the youngest age you ever reached that chapter with, too, so even if you go back to a previous chapter and do a terrible job, it won’t set you back.

How Can You Prevent Aging in Sifu?

The short answer here is “don’t get defeated,” but that is easier said than done, and frankly isn’t particularly helpful advice.

The key to achieving our main goal of “don’t get defeated,” is to use avoid abilities ( + ) as much as possible, but we’ve got a whole host of other useful advisory tidbits in our Sifu Beginners Guide that should help you stem the flow of time.

Instead of just simply avoiding death, you can actually decrease the impact of death. Remember that death counter we mentioned at the start of this guide?

Well, the death counter can be decreased. By defeating Bosses and Mini-bosses throughout each chapter, you can decrease the Death Counter by one for each that you defeat.

You can also reset your Death Counter completely to 0 by spending 1000 XP at Shrines. It’s a good idea to do this before boss fights if you have the XP to spare.

Note that the Death Counter will persist between chapters, so if you finish the Squats with a Death Counter of 2, then it will still be at 2 when you enter the Club chapter.

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