GoKawiilIn Onimusha: Way of the Sword, you don't just play as one of the most famous master swordsmen in history. You also play as kind of an idiot.
At Summer Game Fest, I sat down for about an hour of hands-on time with Capcom's triumphant return to the Onimusha franchise, which will break nearly two decades of dormancy when Way of the Sword releases on Sept. 25. The good news is that the section of the game I played was more of the same brutal, skillful swordplay combat I briefly saw last year.
Musashi's rough personality comes across in the Summer Game Fest 2026 preview. Capcom/Screenshot by CNET
The great news is that your protagonist, Japanese legend Miyamoto Musashi, is more fun and odd than previous glimpses of the game suggested, better matching the game's comically bloody action-horror tone. Don't get me wrong, I love a good stoic warrior burdened by the code he lives for, but we've had a slew of games featuring samurai seeking to restore their honor or enact revenge, from 2019's Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and 2020's Ghost of Tsushima to its sequel Ghost of Yotei and Assassin's Creed: Shadows (both released last year).
Demon-killing aside, it wasn't until this hands-on that I felt that Way of the Sword might meaningfully stray from the path walked by those other titles. In this chunk of the game, I entered a town partially overcome by demon soldiers (called Genma), but wandered through a rift of sorts into a brightly sun-dappled area in the village, finding spirits of locals who had all happily suffered bizarre fates, like having half a leg amputated to cure an aching knee or a couple turned into dolls to stay silently together forever. Hmm!
To confront the oni demon cursing the villagers, Musashi must recover some missing statues of spirits, and he's pretty rude about it. To get across a river, he borrows a boat from dancer Okuni (presumably Izumo no Okuni, the historic founder of kabuki), and then complains that he doesn't know how it works: "When would a swordsman need to paddle a boat?" She tries to explain how oars function and calls him an idiot. It's great.
In more traditional samurai games, it's pleasant to see the noble struggle of being locked in social hierarchies and norms, but that can feel rote and restrictive after a while. A rude, oafish Musashi unmoored from bushido's code of respect and duty fits the game's chaotic setting of demons running amok through rural villages. The franchise's iconic Oni Gauntlet speaks to him, trying to curb his poor manners. There's comedy amid slick sword slashing.
And yes, my sword got very bloody -- though mastering Musashi's moves was harder than I expected.
Read more: Onimusha: Way of the Sword Producer Interview: Resurrecting a Series After 20 Years
Slowly, painfully learning Onimusha's many parries
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