One of the reasons why last year’s Onimusha: Way of the Sword reveal was so surprising is that the franchise hasn’t had a new game in almost 20 years (the last mainline entry being 2006’s Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams). According to the game’s developers, the lengthy delay was due to Capcom spreading out its assets across multiple IPs, leading to a lack of resources for a new Onimusha game – up until recently.
In an interview with JPGames, producer Akihito Kadowaki reveals that many people at Capcom wanted to make a new Onimusha game for a long time. However, the size of the studio’s previous projects – which include Devil May Cry 5, three Monster Hunter games, Dragon’s Dogma 2, as well as two new Resident Evil titles and several remakes – required a lot of staff and time to develop. As a result, Capcom did not have enough resources to spare for a new Onimusha title.
This changed around 2020, when several core members of what would eventually become the development team for Onimusha: Way of the Sword finally assembled. In addition to finding enough manpower for the project, Capcom’s proprietary RE engine was finally fine-tuned to a point where it had all the features needed to make the game. With the team and game engine in place, development for Way of the Sword began in earnest.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword’s development team consists of roughly 170 people. While the team is aware that the success of the Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny remaster has prompted requests for an Onimusha 3: Demon Siege remaster, Kadowaki says that diverting any manpower from Way of the Sword would negatively impact it. Given that they don’t want to compromise on this latest entry, all of the developers are focused on creating the new title.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is scheduled to release in 2026 for PC (Steam), PS5, and Xbox Series X❘S.
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