Nobody at The Game Awards 2024 was talking about Onimusha going in. The chatter was about Resident Evil, the next inevitable chapter in Capcom's biggest horror franchise. What the show delivered instead was a trailer for Onimusha: Way of the Sword, a fully new entry in a samurai action series that had been sitting quietly on the shelf for roughly twenty years. The room, and the internet shortly after, had a moment.
That gap is not a small thing. The last mainline Onimusha game came out in the mid-2000s. An entire console generation of players grew up without a new one. The announcement landed alongside a confirmed revival of Okami, which made it feel less like a one-off nostalgia play and more like a deliberate statement from Capcom about where its attention is going.
Act I: The Silence and the Signals
Capcom did not go completely dark on Onimusha during those two decades. In 2019, the company released an HD remaster of the original Onimusha: Warlords for modern platforms. At the time it read as a quiet fan service move. Looking back, it looks more like a test, a way to measure whether anyone still cared before spending serious money on something new.
The answer, apparently, was yes. A remaster of Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny has also been confirmed for modern platforms, and its timing matters. Dropping a remaster of the second game right alongside the announcement of a brand-new entry is a classic move for re-introducing a series to players who either missed it or bounced off it years ago. You give them something familiar and lower-stakes to play while the big release is still in development. Other publishers have done exactly this, and it tends to work.
Act II: What Capcom Is Actually Doing
The dual revival of Onimusha and Okami at the same event is not a coincidence. Capcom has spent the last several years demonstrating that it knows how to bring old franchises back without embarrassing itself. The track record with other returning series gives real reason to take Way of the Sword seriously, not just as a nostalgia product but as a genuine attempt to make something current.
The strategy being applied here has a recognizable shape. Remaster the earlier entries, rebuild awareness among longtime fans, attract new players who are curious about the fuss, and then release a new flagship title into a market that has been primed. It is methodical. It is also the kind of thing a publisher does when it believes the underlying IP has legs, not when it is trying to clear a licensing obligation.
Onimusha as a series has a specific flavor worth noting. Samurai action, demon-hunting, feudal Japanese settings rendered with cinematic weight. That combination has aged better than some of its contemporaries, and there is nothing else in the current market that sits in quite that space. If Way of the Sword can deliver on the setting and sharpen the combat for modern expectations, it has a genuinely open lane.
For now, details on the new game remain sparse. What Capcom showed was enough to confirm it exists and that it looks ambitious. The remaster of Onimusha 2 gives fans something concrete to hold while they wait. That might be the most honest version of the situation: a company that spent two decades ignoring one of its better ideas has finally decided to pick it back up, and the first real evidence of what comes next is still a few years off.
Worth paying attention to, even if you never played the originals. Especially if you never played the originals.
Mara Solis is a staff writer at GoAndGame covering board games, tabletop strategy, and the culture around competitive play. She has spent years logging hours at game tables from local hobby shops to international conventions. Her writing blends practical insight with a genuine enthusiasm for the communities games create.
