This interview has been edited for clarity.

There’s a reason why Capcom’s action-adventure franchise, Onimusha, was initially dubbed “Resident Evil but with swords” when it first debuted in 2001. Between the pair’s similar tank movement controls and visual design, both featuring 3D characters moving against a 2D background, Onimusha: Warlords redefined the early hack-and-slash genre by deliberately slowing down its combat and prioritising player positioning, input timing, and studying enemy patterns, making it more akin to the survival horror nature of Capcom’s flagship zombie series.

Onimusha: Warlords (2001)

Over time, as the gaming industry and hardware evolved, so too did the Onimusha franchise, first doing away with pre-rendered backgrounds for real-time environments while still maintaining a fixed camera angle in its third mainline entry, Onimusha 3: Demon Siege (2004), alongside the introduction of more areas with free camera movement in it’s follow up, Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams (2006). Through it all, the franchise still kept its combat fundamentals intact, drawing an avid fanbase looking for something more grounded compared to other more action-oriented titles.

Things were looking up for the franchise, and fans waited in anticipation for Capcom to unveil its next evolution. And then… nothing. Not for the next two decades, at least.

It’s been a long time coming, but Capcom is finally ready to bring the classic franchise to the modern gaming age with Onimusha: Way of the Sword. But despite its current-gen visual upgrade, updated camera controls, and flashy swordplay, this newest title still aims to provide the same Onimusha swordplay fans will remember at its core, while also adding ways for newcomers to get in their Genma-killing fix.

Game director Satoru Nihei Game producer Akihito Kadowaki

“In terms of the feel of combat, one of the aims for this title was to make swordplay feel as believable as possible,” explains the game’s director Satoru Nihei, who Geek Culture was able to speak with in a post-preview interview, alongside game producer Akihito Kadowaki.

“There’s a lot of weight when it comes to motion and animations, like for example, if you block a large enemy holding a giant club, your character will sink to the ground instead of just blocking it like any other attack. This heavy feel wasn’t something we were particularly focused on during development, but it kind of evolved as we worked to make the action more grounded.”

One area where players would immediately notice the grounded nature of Onimusha: Way of the Sword is in its lack of animation cancels for basic attacks. This means that once players press an input button, they are committing to performing that move, and must wait until its animation plays out in full before transitioning to the next attack. It’s a small detail, but it makes all the difference, especially in a game that heavily relies on reaction speed.

“We felt that, if it was possible to cancel out of attacks into defensive moves, it would diminish the risk-reward factor of combat,” explains Nihei. This doesn’t mean that animation cancelling doesn’t exist in the game, as Kadowaki clarifies that players will be able to perform cancels, but they “are tied to very specific abilities.”

While players will just have to wait and see which abilities Kadowaki is referring to when the full game launches, Onimusha: Way of the Sword certainly has a healthy handful of them. In our two-hour preview session alone, we were introduced to at least five different ways to counter an enemy’s attack, alongside two Oni Armaments, unlockable special weapons that can be used once a player fills their spirit bar by absorbing enough souls.

In this way, this latest Onimusha title is taking a rather different approach to weapons, as most of the additional tools players acquire during their playthrough are now “abilities” on a “cooldown”, they can no longer freely swap blades like the older titles, a deliberate decision by the team to improve upon its dynamic swordplay.

“One of the reasons for focusing on the katana as the main weapon in this game is that we wanted to expand on the range of expression of swordplay,” explains Nihei. “We have the overall concept of ‘blades clashing’, so the parry mechanics and all our deflection moves were something we wanted to flesh out rather than focusing on multiple different weapons.”

With all these different offensive and defensive options available to the player, Onimusha: Way of the Sword seems to maintain the skill-based combat from the originals, and while returning fans would no doubt be pleased, the almost overwhelming number of moves on offer might understandably be daunting for franchise newcomers. Fortunately, the team has also kept this group of players in mind when crafting their modern Onimusha entry.

“We do have separate difficulties to choose from, such as Story Mode, which is geared towards those that might not be as good at action games,” explains Nihei. “But for those who want the challenge but need guidance on which moves to use at any given time, we do provide the option for displaying action prompts, which enables icons that pop up on enemies to tell players which buttons to press for actions like evading attacks and parrying.”

In addition, Nihei also reveals that Story Mode will even change the timings of certain moves, such as the iconic Issen, a core franchise mechanic that allows players to deflect an attack and instantly kill a foe if they time their attack button right as an enemy’s move is about to connect. The move returns for this latest entry and is equally as difficult to pull off as in previous games, but if players lower the difficulty, the required timing to successfully pull off the move would be loosened.

Of course, the team still had to consider the opposite side of things and make sure that by making Onimusha: Way of the Sword more accessible to newcomers, it didn’t diminish the challenge returning players will expect.

From our experience with the gameplay demo, the true challenge of the game lies in its many boss fights, which ups the ante significantly and requires players to lock in on parry timings and study their attack patterns. Outside of bosses, however, dealing with normal combat encounters was a comparatively easy affair, with even larger groups of grunts being able to be dealt with easily with simple button mashing.

Some might see this as a potential difficulty imbalance, but according to the team, this was due to the nature of the preview session itself, as it took place relatively early on in the game.

“Obviously, the bosses have been designed to be relatively challenging, but the basic encounters seen early on are designed to help players ease into the action,” explains Nihei. “As you progress through the story, enemies are going to get more challenging as the difficulty scales up with progression.”

“The point that the preview led up to is still quite early on in the game, so that’s why the difficulty is lower,” adds Kadowaki. “Later on in the game, there’s going to be new variants of enemies to face, so with bigger and more varied groups of foes to fight against, players will need to think about how to approach and address each encounter to factor in these combinations of different enemies.”

One final thing the team points out is that the experience seen in the final build of the game will be quite different from that of the early looks, such as its free demo, as these previews are designed to give players all the abilities at once for them to try out.

“With the demo that was released, we gave all these actions to the player, like all the different counters and parries, at one go, so that’s why it’s quite overwhelming for the player,” explains Nihei. “But with the retail version of the game, you’re going to find that these abilities are introduced at a more measured pace, so that players can gradually get used to them and learn how to utilise them over the course of the title.”

It does seem like Capcom is undergoing the daunting task of trying to find a balance between two opposing ends – the expectations of returning players who revel in complex button combinations and precise timings, and drawing in newcomers that might not be as familiar with such action games. 

With four previous Onimusha titles under its belt, many of which are highly-regarded til this day, the studio certainly has the experience needed to overcome this challenge, so it will be exciting to see how Onimusha: Way of the Sword shapes up when it launches on 4 September 2026 for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.