[Gamescom 2025] “Onimusha: Way of the Sword” Hands-On

We’re not at Gamescom, but Capcom brought Gamescom to us with an invite to their San Francisco office for “Gamescom by the Bay” where we got to try their demo lineup for the biggest gaming show overseas. The first game we got our hands on was Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and Capcom is simply cooking.

The last time we talked about Onimusha, it was during Summer Game Fest. We sat in a small theater behind closed doors to catch a glimpse of the first gameplay footage. As awesome as the demo looked, we didn’t actually get our hands on it. That’s exactly what we did at this event, and it plays like a dream.

Unfortunately, the demo we played was the same demo we saw behind closed doors at SGF a few months ago, so it was a little disappointing that we didn’t get to experience anything truly new, especially seeing the latest trailer that dropped during Opening Night Live yesterday.

Soul absorption looks and feels awesome in Way of the Sword.

Still, finally diving into Way of the Sword myself, as someone that’s now a fan thanks to Capcom’s recent remasters of Onimusha Warlords and Onimusha 2, I have a strong appreciation for how far the series has come. It kind of feels a bit like a slower Ghost of Tsushima, with the ability to suck up souls in addition to the obvious importance of guarding and parrying enemy attacks.

To anybody jumping in, it feels like your standard swordfighting action game. Square serves as your main strike, while triangle makes Musashi slash at enemies while keeping two hands on his sword. He won’t be as fast if you string together two handed moves, but the movements definitely feel more fluid. As stated, sucking up souls is central to the game. As you kill enemies, they’ll drop blue souls for power, yellow for health and red for experience. If you’re familiar with Onimusha already, you might be surprised to find out that enemies can suck up souls too, so you’ll want to be quick with every kill.

Eventually I came across some archers, and while they’re pretty easy to deal with from short range, aside from dodging their arrows, it was also pretty cool to parry them. Parrying is done by blocking just attacks land, and it looks and feels awesome when Musashi just bats them away like he’s Darth Vader. Some of the clashes and damage sounds also sound the way they did like in previous games too, so it’s definitely a way to pay homage to the classics.

As I made my way through about 30% of the demo, there was a power outage in the room, so it took a while to get things back up. That said, I was on a bit of a time crunch, so when we got back to action, I pleasantly found out that you can be as aggressive as you want. Typically, tutorials of first-time user experiences really want to guide you through a certain way, but if you just want to hack away at demons, you absolutely can do that. It’ll feel less like Onimusha, but I do have to credit Capcom for having that level of approachability to it. At the end of the day, I do think the counters are just cooler, but play it however you want when you get it.

Eventually I made my way to the boss, Sasaku Ganryu, and the wayward samurai had his way with me and killed me like four times. After plowing through the demo, you wouldn’t think it would be that difficult, but the key here that I liked was relying on the counter game. Ganryu’s moves are a bit unpredictable, but every time you counter him, he’s susceptible to big damage, and once you bring down his stamina (the red gauge), you can break his “Issen,” which will allow you to target specific body parts for massive damage. It only took about two Issen Breaks to heat Ganryu this time, and that’s where the demo ended.

Again, after seeing the new trailer today and the protagonist Miyamoto Musashi wield more weapons, I’ll only be counting down the days before we get to try that out. I’ll go as far as saying it’s now my most anticipated game of 2026. There’s no concrete date on it yet, but you know I’ll be watching and waiting.

Title:
Onimusha: Way of the Sword
Platform:
PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, PC
Publisher:
Capcom
Developer:
Capcom
Genre:
Action-Adventure
Release Date:
2026
ESRB Rating:
M
Developer's Twitter:

We’re not at Gamescom, but Capcom brought Gamescom to us with an invite to their San Francisco office for “Gamescom by the Bay” where we got to try their demo lineup for the biggest gaming show overseas. The first game we got our hands on was Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and Capcom is simply cooking.

The last time we talked about Onimusha, it was during Summer Game Fest. We sat in a small theater behind closed doors to catch a glimpse of the first gameplay footage. As awesome as the demo looked, we didn’t actually get our hands on it. That’s exactly what we did at this event, and it plays like a dream.

Unfortunately, the demo we played was the same demo we saw behind closed doors at SGF a few months ago, so it was a little disappointing that we didn’t get to experience anything truly new, especially seeing the latest trailer that dropped during Opening Night Live yesterday.

Soul absorption looks and feels awesome in Way of the Sword.

Still, finally diving into Way of the Sword myself, as someone that’s now a fan thanks to Capcom’s recent remasters of Onimusha Warlords and Onimusha 2, I have a strong appreciation for how far the series has come. It kind of feels a bit like a slower Ghost of Tsushima, with the ability to suck up souls in addition to the obvious importance of guarding and parrying enemy attacks.

To anybody jumping in, it feels like your standard swordfighting action game. Square serves as your main strike, while triangle makes Musashi slash at enemies while keeping two hands on his sword. He won’t be as fast if you string together two handed moves, but the movements definitely feel more fluid. As stated, sucking up souls is central to the game. As you kill enemies, they’ll drop blue souls for power, yellow for health and red for experience. If you’re familiar with Onimusha already, you might be surprised to find out that enemies can suck up souls too, so you’ll want to be quick with every kill.

Eventually I came across some archers, and while they’re pretty easy to deal with from short range, aside from dodging their arrows, it was also pretty cool to parry them. Parrying is done by blocking just attacks land, and it looks and feels awesome when Musashi just bats them away like he’s Darth Vader. Some of the clashes and damage sounds also sound the way they did like in previous games too, so it’s definitely a way to pay homage to the classics.

As I made my way through about 30% of the demo, there was a power outage in the room, so it took a while to get things back up. That said, I was on a bit of a time crunch, so when we got back to action, I pleasantly found out that you can be as aggressive as you want. Typically, tutorials of first-time user experiences really want to guide you through a certain way, but if you just want to hack away at demons, you absolutely can do that. It’ll feel less like Onimusha, but I do have to credit Capcom for having that level of approachability to it. At the end of the day, I do think the counters are just cooler, but play it however you want when you get it.

Eventually I made my way to the boss, Sasaku Ganryu, and the wayward samurai had his way with me and killed me like four times. After plowing through the demo, you wouldn’t think it would be that difficult, but the key here that I liked was relying on the counter game. Ganryu’s moves are a bit unpredictable, but every time you counter him, he’s susceptible to big damage, and once you bring down his stamina (the red gauge), you can break his “Issen,” which will allow you to target specific body parts for massive damage. It only took about two Issen Breaks to heat Ganryu this time, and that’s where the demo ended.

Again, after seeing the new trailer today and the protagonist Miyamoto Musashi wield more weapons, I’ll only be counting down the days before we get to try that out. I’ll go as far as saying it’s now my most anticipated game of 2026. There’s no concrete date on it yet, but you know I’ll be watching and waiting.

Date published: 08/20/2025
/ 5 stars