If you follow the gaming keyboard space, you may have heard some buzz about something called SOCD (Simultaneous Opposing Cardinal Directions), also known as Snap Tap under Razer's branding. This feature allows you to pair keys together at a hardware level, programming them to overwrite each other when pressed, allowing you to frame perfectly switch between inputs without having to worry about the timing of when to let go of the previous key. If you aren't familiar with it, here's an example use case: sidestrafing with "a" and "d" is common in many games (for example by keyboard and mouse runners in Sekiro), and therefore pairing the "a" and "d" keys with SOCD is very beneficial. While holding "d" to strafe to the right, you can then press "a" without letting go of "d" to start strafing to the left. This will perfectly stop the "d" input from continuing to be sent and send "a" instead, leading to a perfect direction change. It's important to know that when you hold both directions at the same time, which will naturally happen for a split second for any human player, the usual response is for the character to stand still for a moment. SOCD is an advantage, and it's currently only really available on $200+ keyboards.

SOCD, Snap Tap, and all other similar hardware features (and scripts or software simulating SOCD like Null Movement Scripts) are being banned for use in runs submitted to the leaderboards. If you are currently using it for other games, please make sure to turn it off before doing runs that you intend to submit to the leaderboards. On Razer keyboards, you should be able to make a profile with it disabled that automatically loads up when Sekiro is running.

This ban may be reverted in the future. However, it may also stay banned. We are reacting to it early to prevent it from being abused in ways that we won't be able to predict. I encourage anyone wishing to discuss it to join the Discord server and participate in the leaderboard-discussion channel. Alternatively, you can make a post here on the forums.