Onimusha: Way of the Sword, releasing in 2026, will be the series’ first new mainline entry in 20 years, featuring legendary samurai Miyamoto Musashi as the protagonist. The game has been in production since early 2020, with Capcom taking 2 years just to get permission to model the protagonist after a famous late actor Toshiro Mifune. In the meantime, trends have changed, and open-world games and soulslikes have become a strong presence in the video game market. We asked Onimusha director Satoru Nihei how much the game will be incorporating these trends after 20 years, and what changes it will bring compared to past titles.
“Onimusha: Way of The Sword isn’t an open-world game, and it certainly isn’t a punishing die-and-retry (soulslike) game either,” Nihei remarked. “While there’s no doubt seasoned action-game players will be able to enjoy it, our goal was to make a game which gamers who don’t consider action games their forte will also have fun playing. In Way of The Sword, our main focus was to express the clashing of blades through the action.”
It not being open world shouldn’t be shocking, but it not being like a souls game wasn’t necessarily known yet. But I am super happy about it. Let Onimusha be what it always was, no need for big changes in that regard.