Onimusha: Way of the Sword director would much rather "express the clashing of blades" in a franchise revival than turn it into a Soulslike: "It certainly isn't a punishing die-and-retry game"

Onimusha: Way of the Sword.

Action games have taken a turn over the last decade or so. While everyone was chasing the Devil May Cry train during the 2000s, once FromSoftware birthed the Soulslike genre, the genre has pivoted. The likes of The First Berserker: Khazan or Stellar Blade would pull me in with their action game stylings only to reveal the Souls influence, but not everyone is chasing the same trend.

Recently some action games have been pushing back on that and returning to the conventional action style, with the devs of Phantom Blade 0 being extremely insistent that the game is not a soulslike. And now Capcom's Onimusha: Way of the Sword is joining that wave of classic action game revivals.