From a Clean Slate
The last full release in the series came out in 2006 on PlayStation 2 — it was Dawn of Dreams, the fourth installment in the main Onimusha line, which flopped spectacularly in sales despite good reviews at the time, scoring around 80 out of 100. After that, Capcom only dabbled in lazy remasters, VR experiments, and mobile spin-offs for years, but nothing truly serious happened with the brand again.
In 2026, the developers face the task of explaining the essence of the series to a new audience raised on soulslikes, while not disappointing old-school fans who still remember that Onimusha was originally a samurai version of Resident Evil.
Therefore, Onimusha: Way of the Sword is essentially a complete reboot, shifting the chronology from the Sengoku period to the Edo era. The main character here is the legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. The character is not entirely new to the universe: he already appeared in the 2023 Netflix animated series "Onimusha," and his appearance was given by Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune — star of Akira Kurosawa's cult films "Seven Samurai" and "Yojimbo."
According to the plot, Musashi unwillingly becomes an Onimusha — a warrior who must use the power of the demonic Oni gauntlet to destroy Genma monsters. The demo is a kind of vertical slice that will differ from the final build — just as it was with Pragmata at the time.
In the demo, Musashi arrives in Kyoto, filled with evil spirits. The hero needs to fight his way to the famous Kiyomizu-dera temple and cleanse the sanctuary of the demonic Malice that has enveloped it. The only companion of the swordsman on this path is a mysterious female voice coming directly from the gauntlet. We are not really explained anything more, but more is not required for a samurai action game — especially at the introductory stage. It's time to dive straight into the gameplay.
A Soulslike for Those Tired of Soulslikes
From the first seconds, the game resembles a full-fledged representative of Asian soulslikes, which the industry is churning out on an industrial scale today. Here you have a combat system with light and heavy attacks, parries and dodges, here you have soul collection and bonfire-like shrines in the spirit of Nioh, and the hero himself visually and in his mannerisms resembles the Wolf from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice — only instead of a prosthetic arm, he has a magical gauntlet. Add to this a dark world and a string of obscure creatures that only Eastern mythology could spawn, and the resemblance becomes almost 100%.
It's indeed easiest to explain the game through analogies with other projects, but important nuances greet us even in the main menu. For starters, there's a difficulty selection: only two options are available at the start — "Story" (with hints enabled) and "Action" (with an emphasis on fair battles).
But even on "Action," the game doesn't twist your arms and rejects suffocating penalties. The resurrection and save system here works according to the classic rules of single-player adventures:
- Shrine-bonfires. More reminiscent of typewriters from Resident Evil. They serve as familiar resting points and manual saves. Progress is permanently fixed, although enemies in the location do respawn after you decide to "rest" at the bonfire.
- No full loss of souls. If you die, the game doesn't force you to run back to the place of death for dropped experience. It simply rolls you back to the last save. You only lose the progress and souls you accumulated since the last save.
- Comfort on bosses. Defeat in a battle with the main enemy does not punish you with a long run across the entire map through a line of newly revived monsters. The game offers an instant restart of the battle right on the spot.
But these are just some of the differences. As soon as you get into a fight and start to understand the nuances, the last resemblance to classic hardcore action games vanishes.
It turns out that neither dodges nor attacks consume stamina (and neither does running, for which I am grateful). It is only consumed in two cases: if an enemy hits the character or if the character completely blocks enemy attacks. Moreover, blocking works even against attacks from behind. This frees up your hands, allowing you to aggressively slash monsters, from whom Musashi eagerly severs limbs, chops off heads, and cuts bodies in half.
Alas, don't expect Tarantino-esque blood fountains — our opponents are demons after all. However, don't relax: the less stamina the character has, the higher the damage taken, which means simply sitting in a deep defense is not a solution, but an extreme measure.
This also works in reverse: by depleting an enemy's stamina, you can perform a spectacular finishing blow, and there are several such techniques here. It can even lead to a series of instant kills in the style of Assassin's Creed if you manage to stun a group of enemies at once — for example, by performing a masterful series of pirouettes, knocking them into each other, or throwing a wooden shield into the crowd.
The game allows you to use the environment, but in the demo, there are few such interactive objects, and their deep meaning is not yet apparent: it's much easier and faster to close in on an enemy and simply cut off their head. It's possible that these mechanics will be in demand in some boss battles, but for now, it's an exclusively pleasant, albeit optional, gameplay element.
In any case, the good news is that to defeat the local bestiary, you won't have to frantically mash the parry button every quarter of a second, as in Sekiro. At least, not only.
Five Shades of Defense
The trick is that basic things like simple attacks, dodges, and parries are so strongly interconnected that it's astonishing. For example, dodges here are divided into two types and serve completely different purposes. If you press dodge in place, the hero will perform a feint, move out of the line of attack, and gain the opportunity to counterattack, reducing the enemy's stamina. But if you dodge in a certain direction, Musashi will jump further and safely change position, which is vital against strong slashing attacks and grabs.
In turn, parrying doesn't force you to memorize the finest timings, but the more precisely you hit them, the more spectacular the animation will be and the longer the enemy will remain open for a counterattack. At the same time, a perfect defense fills a special gauge that increases the damage dealt. In short, the "risk-reward" system works perfectly here. Moreover, in addition to classic parrying, there is a deflection mechanic: you won't be able to counterattack after it, but it allows you to deflect arrows flying at you and depletes the attacker's stamina much faster.
Also, you occasionally have to cross swords with an opponent head-on. And even this interaction has two types here: a classic clinch, where you just need to quickly mash buttons, and a "blade flurry" — where to win, you need to change the type of attack each time, without repeating.
And all these techniques are far from the limit, but only a basic skeleton. The full extent of the local progression is not shown in the demo, although many more movements flashed in the trailers. Plus, the game will definitely have additional Oni weapons with their own techniques — in the demo itself, for example, you can try out a juicy and fast series of attacks with dual blades.
From the demo, I can only point out one serious drawback so far: even on the maximum available "Action" difficulty, the initial enemies seem too weak. They die quickly, don't create pressure, and act more like training dummies. Only closer to the end do enemies start to show their teeth and at least actively block Musashi's attacks.
The demo culminates in a battle with Miyamoto Musashi's long-time rival, Sasaki Ganryu. He is a true examiner who will make your heart pound and will certainly test how well you have mastered all the techniques. He, more than anyone else, makes it clear that positioning is truly important here. That the combat is weighty, tactile, and at the same time swift — but completely devoid of mindless slasher button-mashing. The game encourages truly samurai composure and thoughtful button presses — being greedy and trying to squeeze in an extra hit in a combo is simply dangerous here.
The battles feel familiar at a basic level, yet completely unique in their nuances. In this regard, Onimusha is unlike other modern slashers or anything Capcom has done before. In its depth, it perfectly exploits the "easy to learn, hard to master" paradigm. But there is also something here that, on the contrary, is strikingly similar to other single-player games from the publisher — I'm talking about level design.
Signature Design
Capcom now seems to understand better than anyone that audiences desperately lack high-quality, tightly-knit linear projects of 15-20 hours in the spirit of the seventh console generation — and therefore shamelessly exploits the same formula. If in Resident Evil we look for keys, and in Pragmata we hack terminals to open a door and get to the next location, then in Onimusha, threads extend from a locked passage, at the opposite ends of which sit demonic spiders. Destroy the spider — the path is clear.
Otherwise, the locations are just as compact and corridor-like — with rare offshoots where resources lie, and shortcuts that you gradually open from the other side. No open world and not even a hint of verticality — the game simply has no jump button.
From a visual standpoint, the demo leaves mostly pleasant impressions. The game looks decent, but the locations in the demo are very dark and grayish — it's pure Japanese dark fantasy with horror elements, which causes some details and expressiveness to be lost. Even with ray tracing, the picture doesn't evoke the same wow effect as, for example, Resident Evil Requiem, but nevertheless leaves the impression of a well-developed and polished project.
And although the game is visually dark, there is reason to believe that in the release it will be a bit kitschy — with pompous dialogues and jokes in the middle of battle. In the demo itself, there are only very small hints of this, but in the trailers, there was much more of this mood: they depicted a character who resembles Sun Wukong from Black Myth: Wukong in character — a self-confident trickster who perceives deadly battles with excitement, as a kind of game.
From a technical standpoint, optimization is pleasing — the game runs like clockwork. On my Ryzen 5 7500F and RTX 4070 Super setup at 1440p on ultra settings, I easily got over 70 FPS in native resolution even with maximum ray tracing. When using DLSS in "Quality" mode and frame generation, the counter goes beyond 130+ FPS with RT and over 180 without ray tracing.
However, it was not without bugs. The first time ray tracing was enabled, the game simply crashed, and during the playthrough, the paper lanterns in the locations went crazy and started exploding with purple-white noise. Artifacts also appeared on some other textures, but not as clearly. This happened during the first playthrough, and in total I spent two hours in the demo — and the problem did not recur.
The localization is worth mentioning separately: full Russian voice acting is immediately available in the game, which is always nice. However, its quality is still questionable: the actors sometimes try to imitate specific Japanese intonations, which makes the lines sound overly theatrical. In addition, the main character sometimes speaks with an echo effect, as if he is in a spacious empty room. However, only a couple of phrases are heard in the demo, so it is too early to judge fully.
Verdict
After the demo, I want to say that Capcom is once again preparing a very high-level project. Way of the Sword leaves the impression of a polished, tactile, and masterful action game capable of captivating both soulslike fans and lovers of pure slashers. The developers took familiar and understandable elements but did not thoughtlessly exploit the formula: they are trying to take a step forward — and slightly to the side, to refresh familiar genre templates.
The game already has an expressive protagonist, a solid technical foundation, recognizable Capcom level design, and a deep combat system that unfolds through a whole set of flexible tools. And the most intriguing thing is that this is definitely not all. Therefore, if you miss the aesthetics of dark feudal Japan, love an emphasis on timings and pure swordsmanship, the project is definitely worth waiting for.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword will be released on September 25, 2026, on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. We are looking forward to the full release to see if Capcom can maintain its status as one of this year's main hitmakers.