The fight with Lu Bu is the closest tribute Wo Long pays to Sekiro, specifically the latter’s encounter with Gyoubu Oniwa
Elden Ring showed the risks involved in allowing players to race past enemies and skip large expanses of virtual territory to engage in a boss battle for which you are not, perhaps, fully prepared. Yes, there is a sense of illicit excitement involved in sidestepping a game designer’s meticulously crafted play arc. As the people behind a thousand successful YouTube channels know, everyone loves to break apart a videogame and gain a forbidden advantage. But there are dangers to designing in ways that allow for players to skip significant portions of the work: they might miss key information, overlook useful items, or simply lose out on experience that is essential to prepare them for the forthcoming fight.