Onimusha: Way of the Sword was the best thing I saw at Summer Game Fest

I spent three days at Summer Game Fest blasting my eyes with an endless stream of videogames, and the one I'm still thinking about is Onimusha: Way of the Sword. Tragically, I didn't play it: Capcom shuffled press into a room to watch theater demos for both Onimusha and Resident Evil Requiem, the latter of which was pre-recorded, but Onimusha was played live.

That's an important distinction, because it would've been less impressive to watch a playback of perfectly coordinated fights. Instead, a Capcom dev was on the sticks to showcase the swordplay of Miyamoto Musashi, Way of the Sword's protagonist, whose face was modeled after legendary Japanese cinema icon Toshiro Mifune.

Musashi's animations stood out immediately. His swings were measured, playing out much slower than most katana-wielding game heroes while blending smoothly from one slice to the next. His movements were dancelike, emphasizing technique while letting every individual attack breathe.

Despite some obvious modernizations inspired by FromSoftware games—I noticed the series' signature villains, the Genma, now have Sekiro stamina meters—Way of the Sword's group combat, wide camera angle, and omnidirectional block reminded me more of Ghost of Tsushima than anything FromSoftware makes. The two games seem to have a similar balance of manual input for basic attacks and canned animations for things like executions or grapples.

And the sword clashes—holy hell. When the Capcom presenter said the word "parry," I expected to see Musashi deflect the other sword in one big "bounce" like countless other games, but even here, Onimusha takes its time. Swords collide, spewing a fountain of sparks in every direction as the pair of blades drag left and right, redirecting the enemy's strength and knocking them off balance. Capcom said players can use these protracted clashes to "steer" where their opponent stumbles. The demo driver demonstrated this by parrying a Genma and shoving it into a pile of flammable debris.

You can see some of that parrying action in the latest Onimusha trailer, particularly when the ogre boss appears. Watching the towering brute slam its big mace down on Musashi's sword as he fends it off looked like it felt amazing—a genuine "I have to do that" moment.

Capcom also made a big show of the Oni gauntlet, a tool that gives Musashi magic powers and lets him vacuum up Souls (an upgrade currency dating back to classic Onimusha, as I understand it). The Genma spew out Souls like purple-blooded piñatas, but you have to collect them mid-combat before they disappear. At least one enemy type, a floating globule beast, will even suck up Souls if you're not fast enough and then explode in Musashi's face.

The demo concluded with an early boss fight with one of Musashi's rivals, Sasaki Ganryu, another samurai who has recently found an Oni gauntlet. The 1v1 fight was the perfect coda after all the fodder slaughter: The camera pushed in closer, emphasizing Ganryu's gnarled smile as Musashi deflected a combo. The Capcom demoist made quick work of him, but noted it would not be the last run-in with the rival samurai. In fact, that SGF trailer seems to suggest there are a whole bunch of samurai walking around with Oni gauntlets.

It was a demo so clean that I struggled to come up with a single worry. Maybe classic Onimusha fans will have some quibbles, but at a time when there's a new soulslike every week and even Ninja Gaiden is making a comeback, Onimusha: Way of the Sword is the action game I'm paying special attention to. It's coming sometime in 2026.