Capcom Onimusha: Way of the Sword - coming 2026

[Elttharion]

Non-existent imaginary problem living rent free in people's heads.

Nah, I like souls but it's facts. In the late 90s and early 2000s, there was TONS of styles of hardcore hack n slash action game, mostly coming out of Japan but not always (e.g Severance). Nowadays everything is a shameless souls clone (and before that, godawful batman combat clone). Souls clone is a better alternative than most braindead AAA trite, but it's decline from old standards to be so homogeneous and shameless (as usual). Ninja Gaiden was its own thing. DMC was its own thing. Castlevania was its own thing. Onimusha was its own thing. Even the overrated God of War was its own thing. These games and then some. Most ranking from half-way decent to great. Now everything either sucks bad, or is a souls clone with minimal divergence from the formula.

I would argue we are getting less quality games in general. The japs have mostly moved towards gacha and the western side of the industry is in shambles.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Non-existent imaginary problem living rent free in people's heads.

Nah, I like souls but it's facts. In the late 90s and early 2000s, there was TONS of styles of hardcore hack n slash action game, mostly coming out of Japan but not always (e.g Severance). Nowadays everything is a shameless souls clone (and before that, godawful batman combat clone). Souls clone is a better alternative than most braindead AAA trite, but it's decline from old standards to be so homogeneous and shameless (as usual). Ninja Gaiden was its own thing. DMC was its own thing. Castlevania was its own thing. Onimusha was its own thing. Even the overrated God of War was its own thing. These games and then some. Most ranking from half-way decent to great. Now everything either sucks bad, or is a souls clone with minimal divergence from the formula.

Like i said, this is an imaginary problem.

There are no Souls clones coming out of Japan (fucking name one i'm waiting), and there are no Sekiro clones anywhere whatsoever.

Looking at the trailer of this game, what little we can see in it anyway, the only indication this game is even remotely close to Souls is that they shifted the camera. By that standard, is every third person game that doesn't use the weird Devil May Cry or Resident Evil camera a Souls clone? Are Monster Hunter or Dragon Dogma Souls clones? Is God of War a Souls clone?

I honestly don't understand where this perception everybody is copying FromSoft is coming from when the complete opposite appears to be true. If we ignore the small studio indie clones (most of which are western mind you), there's barely anything out there.

As for Japan, where the fuck are they? All i see is endless rehashes of old franchises, over and over. Where are the Souls clones? The Sekiro clones? Can you name one? Because i'd definitely be interested in playing a clone made by a Japanese company, except from what i can see there aren't any (unless you think Nioh counts).

Literally the only Sekiro clone i've ever seen is some tiny indie game with animu girls Ongbal made a funny video about once. Literally the ONLY one out there.

 

[Suicidal]

Non-existent imaginary problem living rent free in people's heads.

Nah, I like souls but it's facts. In the late 90s and early 2000s, there was TONS of styles of hardcore hack n slash action game, mostly coming out of Japan but not always (e.g Severance). Nowadays everything is a shameless souls clone (and before that, godawful batman combat clone). Souls clone is a better alternative than most braindead AAA trite, but it's decline from old standards to be so homogeneous and shameless (as usual). Ninja Gaiden was its own thing. DMC was its own thing. Castlevania was its own thing. Onimusha was its own thing. Even the overrated God of War was its own thing. These games and then some. Most ranking from half-way decent to great. Now everything either sucks bad, or is a souls clone with minimal divergence from the formula.

Like i said, this is an imaginary problem.

There are no Souls clones coming out of Japan (fucking name one i'm waiting), and there are no Sekiro clones anywhere whatsoever.

Looking at the trailer of this game, what little we can see in it anyway, the only indication this game is even remotely close to Souls is that they shifted the camera. By that standard, is every third person game that doesn't use the weird Devil May Cry or Resident Evil camera a Souls clone? Are Monster Hunter or Dragon Dogma Souls clones? Is God of War a Souls clone?

I honestly don't understand where this perception everybody is copying FromSoft is coming from when the complete opposite appears to be true. If we ignore the small studio indie clones (most of which are western mind you), there's barely anything out there.

As for Japan, where the fuck are they? All i see is endless rehashes of old franchises, over and over. Where are the Souls clones? The Sekiro clones? Can you name one? Because i'd definitely be interested in playing a clone made by a Japanese company, except from what i can see there aren't any.

Literally the only Sekiro clone i've ever seen is some tiny indie game with animu girls Ongbal made a funny video about once. Literally the ONLY one out there.

Depends on what you define as a clone. People are very eager to assign this label to every game that bears some similarity to another game nowadays. A lot of people call Nioh a Souls clone. Do you think Nioh is a Souls clone? If so, then Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is a Sekiro clone, as it has similar combat to Sekiro with elements from Nioh. Also I've seen people call Wukong and Lies of P Sekiro clones. If you don't think like that, then I guess there aren't really any Sekiro clones.

 

[Ash]

I've not played the newest wave of Souls-inspired. Not after the older wave was as I described. they finally innovating eh?

There are no Souls clones coming out of Japan (fucking name one i'm waiting), and there are no Sekiro clones anywhere whatsoever.

Nobody said anything about Sekiro? The nation the clones come from also doesn't matter, I only brought it up because it's always been a predominatly JP genre. The hell?

Sekiro and Souls themselves, by FromSoft, are legit. They are heading that particular sub-style and innovating enough between each of the games. It's the shameless clones that are the problem. And there are a LOT of them. Here's some of the lameness I've experienced:

Darksiders 3, the Surge 1 & 2, Lords of the Fallen, Hellpoint, Arboria, Nioh, Salt & Sanctuary (this one is respectable as an indie effort that included platforming focus, at least).

Anyhow, Nioh is Japanese. And it is a clone. See below.

Depends on what you define as a clone. People are very eager to assign this label to every game that bears some similarity to another game nowadays. A lot of people call Nioh a Souls clone. Do you think Nioh is a Souls clone?

It's not hard to establish which are clones and which are their own thing, as they copy Souls mechanically almost wholesale. That's the whole issue being raised. don't play dumb. The lock-on combat, the light attack/heavy attack cumbersome strikes and dodge-rolling with i-frames combat in addition to a very small stamina pool that is best won by "kiting", and even the ranged attacks are lock-on. Limitless inventory capacities combined with a weight system...cause souls did it. Clearing a level one segment after another, unlocking shortcuts as you go. The 3D level design with verticality and often a clunky jump function only accessible after a run-up, but platforming never given any degree of focus for added depth like the old days would. Stagger & parry. Even the clunky player movement physics and controls are emulated, you'd almost think they were running on the same game engine, it's bonkers. The micro-influence of equipment and build-choices that doesn't change much at all, each playthrough and playstyle plays very similarly. Not that those RPG systems aren't appreciated nonetheless, but I digress. This is not how old vidja be, they didn't copy everything outright. Even the so-called "Doom clones" of the 90s mixed it up a ton. Here, they're straight up clones mechanically, in tone (dark and serious), and in structure. Even the way the story is presented or the overall user interface is almost always similar. It's too much shamelessness.
Go play the old greats if you're not a fag and see how awesome and varied things used to be.

 

[Yuber]

Never played Onimusha
Is the first game cool?

First game: Bland music.

WTF? I think Onimusha 1 has one of the best game soundtracks.





There is so much more good tracks I don't see how this is bland lol
Maybe you played the horrible Remaster idk.

Onimusha 1 is in my Top 10 and second one is very good too. Better than pretty much any modern action-adventures I think.

 

[Ash]

None of those tracks tickle my senses. Sorry. Music is highly subjective so it is what it is I guess.

Onimusha 4 had great music:

 

[Lyric Suite]

Nobody said anything about Sekiro?

Sekiro is the first thing he mentioned dude.

The nation the clones come from also doesn't matter

It does in lieu of his argument (he mentioned only Japanese games, like Devil May Cry, Castelvania etc), and also matters how high profile those clones are given the claim he is making (that everything is now a Souls-clone). The fact most actual Souls-clones are from low profile companies shows Souls has had zero industry wide influence.

Darksiders 3, the Surge 1 & 2, Lords of the Fallen, Hellpoint, Arboria, Nioh, Salt & Sanctuary (this one is respectable as an indie effort that included platforming focus, at least).

Those games don't prove the argument. Souls is popular enough to have led to a few copy cats, mostly from small companies. So what. That doesn't mean every action game is Souls now. Souls-clones are not even close to being as big a thing as Doom-cloes were back in the day.

 

[Ash]

The point is most these clones copy far too closely with minimal divergence or innovation, and that there is no good modern hack n slash alternative to the souls formula otherwise (except 2D indies). These two facts combined well It's rather tiresome, especially if familiar with older games and their far greater variety. And on that note, still not brushed up on your history Lyric Suite? You've missed many top quality games back in the day akin to souls because muh consoles, or something. Try Ninja Gaiden (2004) & Castlevania Symphony of the Night (1997) as an action starter pack.

 

[Lyric Suite]

The clones haven't changed much in the formula because they are made by minor studios, which in itself demonstrates the impact of Souls on the industry is nowhere near as big as you are claiming.

During the Doom craze major studios tripped over themselves to outdo Doom because Doom had a major impact. The same cannot be said about Souls. Look how little success those clones have had. Was Lies of P a major mainstream hit? No, because Souls is still niche, even after Elden Ring. The only exception is Wukong but we all know that shit doesn't count because China.

The existence of clones in itself doesn't prove anything. There are many clones of Touhou out there. Does that mean Touhou has had a major impact on the industry? Hardly, right?

As for Castelvania (i played the one on GameBoy does that count?), Devil May Cry and all that shit, all those are still bieng made... which is exactly the problem. Japanese games haven't changed because of Souls. The issue with them is that they have NOT in fact changed. All they do is release the same shit again and again. It's a completely different issue to what you are complaining about.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Non-existent imaginary problem living rent free in people's heads.

Nah, I like souls but it's facts. In the late 90s and early 2000s, there was TONS of styles of hardcore hack n slash action game, mostly coming out of Japan but not always (e.g Severance). Nowadays everything is a shameless souls clone (and before that, godawful batman combat clone). Souls clone is a better alternative than most braindead AAA trite, but it's decline from old standards to be so homogeneous and shameless (as usual). Ninja Gaiden was its own thing. DMC was its own thing. Castlevania was its own thing. Onimusha was its own thing. Even the overrated God of War was its own thing. These games and then some. Most ranking from half-way decent to great. Now everything either sucks bad, or is a souls clone with minimal divergence from the formula.

At the moment it’s a non existent problem since we have zero indication the game will even play like a FromSoftware Souls game. Outside of the back stab move, everything the trailer showed could just be more animated versions of things from the original game.

Even the stealthy looking back stab move doesn’t indicate anything, as even the Resident Evil 4 remake got a stealth kill option. I’d mostly just expect a new Onimusha to play like a take on the first one with some more combos. More combos and better animations...like how the new Parry move in Street Fighter 6 shows the character actually blocking every attack being throw, I could see your character in this game actually moving to stop attacks from whatever direct like we see in the opening of the trailer as opposed a single block stance that acts like it’s putting up some invisible shield around the character. My guess would be we’re seeing a lot of Issen counter attacks in the trailer, and that combat will still revolve around blocking, countering, dodging attacks like the original game does.

Even if this new Onimusha had a stamina meter, Resident Evil 6 had a stamina meter, I wouldn’t expect combat to function like Dark Souls.

 

[Machocruz]

They may do, but Capcom don't really have to copy anyone, they've been action kings since the 8-Bit days. Very few game companies, if any, have their pedigree. Even when, in their words, Dragon's Dogma was influenced by Skyrim, it turned out to be a whole different animal, something Todd Howard in his dreams couldn't hope to make. You can argue they've declined recently/not at their peak, but their decline is higher than most other game companies peak, so.

I have a lot of fondness for Japanese hack and slash games before the PS3 era, so I'm looking forward to see what this is going to be like, if and how it harkens back, will we get Crapcom or Capgods, etc. I think it shouldn't be as "technical" as DMC or Nioh but a little more complex than Onimusha 1-3.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Was really surprised to see this. The leak list and the timeline of releases had me thinking the what was listed there as ONIMUSHA NEW WORK had become Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess somewhere along its development cycle. But it turns out that new Onimusha game was still happening.

It’s a little later than they were originally planning

Now I wonder if Pragmatica is still alive.

Probably, this delay trailer which showed some stuff was just last year.



Pragmata is most likely Regolith in that pre COVID schedule given the moon stuff in the first trailer.

 

[Amurada]

...

Like i said, this is an imaginary problem.

There are no Souls clones coming out of Japan (fucking name one i'm waiting), and there are no Sekiro clones anywhere whatsoever.

Looking at the trailer of this game, what little we can see in it anyway, the only indication this game is even remotely close to Souls is that they shifted the camera. By that standard, is every third person game that doesn't use the weird Devil May Cry or Resident Evil camera a Souls clone? Are Monster Hunter or Dragon Dogma Souls clones? Is God of War a Souls clone?

I honestly don't understand where this perception everybody is copying FromSoft is coming from when the complete opposite appears to be true. If we ignore the small studio indie clones (most of which are western mind you), there's barely anything out there.

As for Japan, where the fuck are they? All i see is endless rehashes of old franchises, over and over. Where are the Souls clones? The Sekiro clones? Can you name one? Because i'd definitely be interested in playing a clone made by a Japanese company, except from what i can see there aren't any (unless you think Nioh counts).

Literally the only Sekiro clone i've ever seen is some tiny indie game with animu girls Ongbal made a funny video about once. Literally the ONLY one out there.

I generally agree with your sentiment, but aren't Code Vein & Let It Die, soulslikes; and to a lesser extent, Nioh, WoLong & Strangers of Paradise? Granted, all the games listed beat any FromSoft game by a country mile imo (although BB & Sekiro may tickle my fancy, haven't had the patience to sit through em). Regardless, it would be a shame if Capcom decided to go this route with Onimusha. I mean, I can't be the only one disappointed in the Resident Evil remakes siphoning out all the personality the older titles had, and Onimusha is effectively a pre-Resi4 esque adventure game, with a novelty melee combat system tacked onto it. The game was a relaxing graphics showcase like Resi 1&2 were; kinda throwaway game mechanics that are only enhanced by the design constraints around the game. Its not like this was a Clover S-class title with extensive mechanics and decent difficulty modes.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I think part of the reason there's this perception everything is Souls now is that from a distance all 3D games of this type look the same.

I have a friend whom i tried to get into the FromSoft bandwagon and he couldn't get the distinction between Souls, Monster Hunter or even shit like Stellar Blade. To him it all looks the same.

Looking at this game the only reason you would think it is closer to Souls compared to the original is that the camera is centered. But there's a shot where the guy kicks somebody behind him and now the camera is on the side and suddenly it doesn't look like Souls anymore.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

No, because Souls is still niche, even after Elden Ring.

Over 25 million copies sold isn't niche.

 

[Lyric Suite]

No, because Souls is still niche, even after Elden Ring.

Over 25 million copies sold isn't niche.

Call me when actual mainstream clones show up.

 

[Ryzer]

I predict 100% chance that it will be a Sekiro-like.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

No, because Souls is still niche, even after Elden Ring.

Over 25 million copies sold isn't niche.

Call me when actual mainstream clones show up.

When was the last time you've seen a mainstream skyrim clone (that wasn't made by betheseda)?

 

[Lyric Suite]

But the argument is that everything is Souls now, remember?

In fact, one of the reasons Souls had no impact on the industry is the same reason Skyrim had no impact: slop makers genuinely don't get it.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

But the argument is that everything is Souls now, remember?

That's the argument you're having with the other posters.

I only and specifically disagreed with your assessment that Elden Ring is niche.

In fact, one of the reasons Souls had no impact on the industry is the same reason Skyrim had no impact

Souls had a very noticeable impact on the industry
The indie scene is overflowing with copycats and even AA games make it apparent when they've taken inspiration from them

Skyrim cemented the structure of the modern open-world game

slop makers genuinely don't get it.

Agreed

 

[Damned Registrations]

Souls had a very noticeable impact on the industry
The indie scene is overflowing with copycats and even AA games make it apparent when they've taken inspiration from them

Very much this. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a 'all your xp lies in a puddle where you died and all the enemies respawn to guard it' mechanic these days. Which I don't mind, because I like that. But I could do without the stamina gauge being so popular, or at least having it function in the exact same fucking way where it stops recovering until ~1 second after you stop swinging, dodging or blocking and then zips back to full in 2 seconds. Or estus flasks being so popular. Or dodges having iframes. Or parry/riposte mechanics. Yeah, all this shit was done before souls, but it's the thing that popularized them which means it's what had that impact on the industry. Nioh has all that shit, which is why I'd consider it a souls clone. Stranger of Paradise at least does something very different with the combat, without a stamina gauge but instead an MP meter that you build up for special attacks and a bunch of other interesting stuff, so I'd say it's not a souls clone. It does still use a lot of those other features though.

The interconnected open world from Dark Souls doesn't get copied much (a pity) but tbh, even Fromsoft basically stopped doing that even in DS2, where the connections between spokes were non existent and the shortcuts within areas were meaningless due to immediate access to bonfire warping. Given that, I actually prefer what Nioh and some other games do where you've got separate levels to warp to and finish, but they can be tweaked with new obstacles and starting locations to make it feel like a fresh experience to navigate. I'd certainly rather do 5 different versions of a single Nioh level than 5 'different' catacombs or caves in ER.

 

[Zlaja]

Looks quite like a Soulsborne.

Onimusha was all about blocking and triggering one-hit-kill issens, not rolling. More like a Sekiro-like.

You also had all your weapons (except the starting one) have a magic meter and powerful magic attacks that were way more powerful than regular attacks. So the key to combat (apart from counters) was to manage your mana properly and use your magic attacks on the most powerful regular enemies and, of course, bosses.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Given that, I actually prefer what Nioh and some other games do where you've got separate levels to warp to and finish, but they can be tweaked with new obstacles and starting locations to make it feel like a fresh experience to navigate.

I don't. I don't like instanced levels very much. Very immersion breaking (the worst offender in this regard was Inquisitor Martyr, which was like the polar opposite of Grim Dawn in how levels were handled). Also the level recycling got old fast.

 

[Ash]

Some of the best games have instanced levels, like say Doom, Mario Bros 3 or half of Deus Ex. But yeah, moderate-sized segmented interconnectivity is generally the best.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Depends on the type of game. Shooters are fine, RPGs less so i guess.