I traveled to Osaka, Japan, back in June to visit Capcom’s HQ and learn more about Onimusha: Way of the Sword, which is the latest game to grace the cover of Game Informer. You can read that cover story right here if you’re a subscriber, but alongside that feature, I’m posting exclusive stories for the next couple of weeks based on my various interviews with the leads behind Capcom’s return to the Onimusha series after a 20-year hiatus.
One of those interviews was with Way of the Sword animation team lead Hiroshi Yugen, who explained how the studio created its own version of Miyamoto Musashi, a legendary samurai in Japanese history and the game’s protagonist. He says the fables, legends, and real stories about Musashi influenced a lot of the game’s take on the swordsman.
“There’s definitely a lot of influence from those real stories that went into creating the action [Musashi] uses in the game, both in terms of his reputation as a sword master and him being very skilled with multiple weapons,” Yugen says. Musashi won’t be utilizing his famous dual-wielding style as he’s still early in his journey – in his 20s – and hasn’t yet discovered/created it at this point of his life in Way of the Sword. “Where Musashi is set in this game is before he’s really mastered that, so there’s more focus on that one-sword action, but we did want to include elements of his familiarity with other weapons, which is why we have the Oni Armament skills that come into play.”
During my time playing Way of the Sword, I used two different Oni Armaments. The Two Celestials are small blades that deal straight damage, while the Earth-Shaker hammers I later unlock in my playtime inflict heavy stagger damage. Equipping different Oni Armaments based on the enemies before you is a crucial part of Musashi’s combat kit. During a fight with the Nue, which consisted of two Chimera, mythical beasts inspired by various animals, using the Earth-Shaker hammers was key to my (eventual) victory against them.
Yugen says stories about Musashi tell of how he used whatever means necessary to achieve victory, which is why his kit includes more than just a sword. You can parry enemies into torches, setting them on fire as a result, or flip tables to use as large shields – after you’re done using it as a shield, you can throw it into enemies, too, knocking them off balance. “These are all elements that were kind of inspired by the real stories of Musashi,” Yugen says.
Some stories of Musashi, who is famous for an undefeated record of 62 sword duels and traveling around Japan specifically to reach that number, tell of an attitude somewhere between confident and cocky. That’s apparent in Way of the Sword’s Musashi, who is also searching for the next duel – in fact, he wants to get rid of the Oni Gauntlet on his arm because he feels like using it is cheating in these duels, a far cry from the likes of Samanosuke or Jubei, who want to use their Oni powers to save the world in Onimusha: Warlords and Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny, respectively.
Yugen says he and the team stressed this confidence/cockiness to the motion capture artists Capcom hired to perform the actions of Musashi and his enemies. But, given how early in Musashi’s journey Way of the Sword takes place, they also took great care to make his action “a little rough around the edges” and “not quite as defined,” according to Yugen.
One thing that helped was to imagine each fight in the various scenarios Musashi finds himself in as a Street Fighter bout. Leaning on one of Capcom’s other franchises, Yugen says the Street Fighter angle helped them define what Musashi would be thinking about as each fight begins, how he would walk up to enemies and approach them with sword in hand, and more. “It was towards the end of the project that we really started introducing those elements to flesh out the uniqueness of him, even down to the way he walks,” Yugen adds. “We didn’t want him to walk with this tension; he has a bit of swagger to him, and that’s something we really paid attention to in design.”
Continuing, Yugen says, “Musashi doesn’t really hide his feelings. He’s very blunt, he’s very direct, and when something is a pain in the ass, he’ll say, ‘God, this is a pain in the ass.’”
Some of that is apparent in the Way of the Sword demo that you can play right now, and a lot of that was apparent in my extended hands-on time with the game. I look forward to seeing how Musashi grows as a swordsman and a man in the game when it launches next month.
I’ll continue diving deeper into Capcom’s return to Onimusha as part of Game Informer’s month of Way of the Sword coverage. We’ll be publishing exclusive gameplay and behind-the-scenes videos (including a Rapid-Fire Interview) on the Game Informer YouTube channel as well. Keep an eye on the Onimusha: Way of the Sword coverage hub so you don’t miss any of it.
In the meantime, here’s some additional Onimusha: Way of the Sword reading for you:
Do you have a favorite Musashi iteration or a story about the samurai? Let us know in the comments below!
