Onimusha: Way Of The Sword Producer Explains The 20-Year Wait For A New Game

Capcom is reviving its classic samurai action series with Onimusha: Way Of The Sword, ending a franchise hiatus that began after the release of Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams in 2006. In an interview covered by Nintendo Life, producer Akihito Kadowaki addressed the two-decade gap, clarifying that internal desire to make a new game existed long before Capcom officially green-lit the project.

According to Kadowaki, teams inside the company wanted to create a new entry for some time, but internal approvals proved difficult to secure due to resource management and competing studio priorities.

Core Franchise Focus and Resource Allocation

A central reason for the extended wait was Capcom's focus on maintaining its biggest flagship series while simultaneously nurturing new projects.

Kadowaki explained that while the series "was always well-received, there were, at Capcom at the time, other major series like Monster Hunter, Resident Evil games, and Street Fighter, but there were also up-and-coming developing titles."

Because key staff were assigned to these major hits and emerging games, assembling a dedicated team to launch a new Onimusha project remained out of reach for years.

The Increasing Scale of Game Production

The staffing challenge was further amplified by the shifting demands of modern game development, which require significantly more time and headcount than when the series was last active.

"And as development became more difficult, needing more time and more people, with all those people focused on those titles, it was very difficult to get a team together," Kadowaki said.

Between the personnel commitments required for Capcom's primary franchises and the overall expansion of modern production schedules, internal teams were unable to secure approval until recently. With Onimusha: Way Of The Sword, those resource hurdles have finally been cleared.

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