Siliconera Tuesday, December 31, 2024 9:00 PM
There was a slew of exciting announcements at The Game Awards 2024, including the returns of several long-dormant franchises. Capcom dusted off not one but two of its beloved old IPs, announcing new installments in both the Okami and Onimusha series. The Okami sequel appears to be getting a lot more love, and it's perhaps not difficult to see why. While Okamiden was a very good game in its own right, fans have been wanting a full-blown sequel for almost two decades. That game also sees Hideki Kamiya return to working with Capcom, reuniting the director with the creation he left off with.
That's exciting news, to be sure. With that said, I think Onimusha: Way of the Sword is set to surprise many. At this point, we know very little about it. Capcom announced the game with a teaser trailer and a few basic story details via the game's official website. We see a samurai equipped with the signature Oni Gauntlet battling an assortment of monsters small and tall, absorbing soul energy, and questioning his own humanity. Standard Onimusha stuff, really. Further information from Capcom tells us the setting is a twisted version of Edo-era Kyoto, where Genma creatures roam and clouds of Malice choke the streets. This also checks out.
Capcom will assuredly continue to trickle out more on the game between now and its 2026 release, but the footage we've seen already has people speculating. What kind of game will it be? Will any characters from previous games return? Why Onimusha, and why now? Time will have to reveal most of those answers, but I believe there is no better time to for Onimusha to make its return. This is a series that carried tremendous weight in its time, and it could very well do so again. The key will be to solve one of the issues to led to its original demise: what is Onimusha, really?
Onimusha was first conceived by series creator Yoshiki Okamoto as little more than a Warring States Japan-flavored take on Resident Evil. Instead of a spooky mansion, players would explore a ninja house filled to the brim with deadly traps and merciless enemies. It was initially planned for the Nintendo 64DD, then partially developed for the PlayStation, but was ultimately released for the PlayStation 2 early in the console's life.
This proved to be a massive boon for the game, now known as Onimusha: Warlords. The PlayStation 2 was an immediate smash hit, and those new owners were hungry for cool games that showed off the power of the console. With Resident Evil otherwise occupied, Onimusha: Warlords looked to scratch that itch in a way no other contemporary game could. Its main character Samanosuke Akechi, modeled after real actor Takeshi Kaneshiro, looked incredible. While the game opted for prerendered backgrounds instead of real-time 3D, this simply allowed its visuals to shine even brighter. It felt like a true next-generation game, even if in most respects it played like the PlayStation games it was inspired by.
Onimusha: Warlords was a huge hit, becoming the first PlayStation 2 game to sell a million copies. A sequel followed, this time starring the late actor Yusaku Matsuda as a new protagonist, Jubei Yagyu. Perhaps responding to some criticism over the brevity of the original game, Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny offered a more sprawling adventure. While it received a sunny reception in Japan, its performance in the West left something to be desired.
This led to Onimusha 3: Demon Siege, which brought back the original hero Samanosuke Akechi and paired him with a French officer portrayed by Jean Reno. This chapter also marked the shift to a full 3D engine, bringing it in line with the latest Resident Evil games. Although reasonably successful, Onimusha 3 couldn't quite hit the heights of the original game's sales. Nevertheless, a fourth entry was developed for the PlayStation 2 and released in 2006, but it was considerably less of an event. Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams' weak sales seemingly spelled the end for a franchise that had been so important to Capcom scant years before.
What happened? It's possible players were burnt out on the series. Counting a couple of spin-offs, there had been six distinct Onimusha games and one remake released in the span of five years. It could be that Onimusha: Warlords was just in the right place at the right time, and returns were bound to diminish. Some might say that it had just run its course as a series. After all, it was hardly the only franchise that failed to make the leap from the PlayStation 2 to the next generation of consoles.
I think there was something else going on, though. It's clear that Onimusha: Warlords resonated with players, at the very least. As the generation went on, I believe Onimusha found itself losing more and more of its purpose both to Capcom and players. If you wanted a Resident Evil-style game from Capcom on your PlayStation 2, the real thing soon arrived. Meanwhile, Devil May Cry was doing the melee action thing in a much more stylish and widely-appealing fashion. Onimusha found itself caught between two other in-house successes, and its Jack of All Trades approach left it in a tough spot that even stunt casting couldn't get it out of.
It likely didn't help that the two elements that most strongly defined the franchise seem to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Onimusha's strong Japanese historical themes may have become a liability as the global market entered a period where Western themes were more strongly favored. Its signature gameplay element, the Issen, was a flashy parrying move that required split-second reactions. It was highly technical and challenging to master. Unfortunately, the general sentiment towards difficult games was also entering a low period.
It's been a long time since 2006, and trends have swung significantly since then. The Dark Souls series and the many games inspired by it have shown that players relish tough, precise fights against deadly monsters of all shapes and sizes. Games with Japanese themes have no trouble finding a global audience, with the likes of Sekiro, Ghost of Tsushima, and Rise of the Ronin demonstrating that samurai settings are hotter than ever. Resident Evil has leaned hard into its horror elements, and Devil May Cry appears to be on another break. The path is once more clear.
Presumably, Onimusha: Way of the Sword isn't going to bind itself excessively to the franchise's traditions. The footage already shown tells us we won't be dealing with prerendered backgrounds or fixed, cinematic camera angles. No obvious signs of Jean Reno. Still, we're going to be going toe-to-toe with plenty of Genma creatures, and that Issen parry move will assuredly be there. Whether or not the game will take on a more open world style or return to the linear style of the older games is as of yet unknown, but there's some serious potential here either way. Even if it turns out that people were burnt out on the games, 20 years is plenty of time for one's appetite to whet again.
While Onimusha once found itself without a place in the world of gaming, this is a medium where things are constantly changing. There's always another chance for a comeback. A chance for an old hit to reforge itself, stronger and sharper than ever. If things continue to line up the way they look to, Onimusha: Way of the Sword might be poised to bring the series back to the top of the gaming world in one swift strike when it arrives in 2026.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is expected to release in 2026 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
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