The last time a new Onimusha game launched, it was 2006. But now, 20 years later, Capcom is just months away from the release of Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and as a fan of those previous games, I’m stoked – doubly so after playing the game for several hours and interviewing the developers for the latest Game Informer cover, which subscribers can read right now.
Given the 20-year gap between Way of the Sword and the last release before it, 2006’s Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams, I was curious about what success for this new game even looks like to Capcom.
An enemy from the first game alongside a similar enemy from Way of the Sword
“We’ve built this game with the intention of essentially creating a new swordplay experience – the pinnacle of swordplay action games,” producer Akihito Kadowaki tells me. “Just releasing [the game] and it being cool for [familiar] players is not quite enough. We want this to be accessible to as many people as possible. So, for people who are not familiar with action games, we want them to feel they can jump in, explore, and enjoy this kind of game. We created the modular difficulty settings for that – we have story, we have action difficulty settings, and even between those, you can change the settings [on a more granular scale].
“Hopefully, we get as many people to enjoy the action and see the game through to the end because there are a lot of people that do pick up these kinds of games and then they can’t see them through to the end because they’re too difficult.”
Kadowaki says that if the game can reach as many people as possible globally, introduce many new players to the action genre, and help them reach the end, the team would consider that a “big success for the series.”
I was somewhat happy to hear this answer, specifically in how it’s void of any talk of sales numbers. I’m sure there are those at Capcom with sales targets in mind, but I hope the publisher-developer isn’t expecting Onimusha to compete with its other franchises just because Onimusha is also technically a franchise. With a 20-year gap between releases, Way of the Sword feels more like a new series than a continuation of one, though it’s definitely still an Onimusha game.
To put some of what I mean in perspective, Resident Evil has surpassed 200 million units sold across its many games; Monster Hunter sits at 127 million copies sold; and Street Fighter at 59 million. Onimusha has just barely eclipsed 9 million, so if Capcom plans to compare it to the aforementioned heavy-hitters franchises, there’s no world where Way of the Sword lives up to expectations.
I’ll be diving deeper into Capcom’s return to Onimusha as part of Game Informer’s month of Way of the Sword coverage. We’ll be publishing exclusive gameplay and behind-the-scenes videos (including a Rapid-Fire Interview) on the Game Informer YouTube channel as well. Keep an eye on the Onimusha: Way of the Sword coverage hub so you don’t miss any of it.
In the meantime, here’s some additional Onimusha: Way of the Sword reading for you:
Where do you want to see the Onimusha series go? Let us know in the comments below!