Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Capcom’s latest action game set in a reimagined Edo-period Kyoto, debuted at No. 6 on Steam on Friday. SteamDB recorded 40,000 active players on the game’s first day, an impressive feat when competing against fellow new release The Blood of Dawnwalker. That hot streak only continued into the weekend.
Twenty-four hours after its release, Onimusha: Way of the Sword surged to the No. 1 selling game on Steam, beating out both Halloween: The Game and WARDOGS. On Saturday, SteamDB recorded 74,575 active players. Way of the Sword marks Capcom’s long-awaited return to the Onimusha story. The last mainline installment, Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams, came out in 2006.
Mixed praise for ‘Way of the Sword’
While its No. 1 spot on Steam already suggests players are enjoying it, critics, too, have offered mostly positive reviews. At the time of writing, Way of the Sword has a Metacritic score of 85 and mostly positive reviews. Criticism mostly stems from the game’s repetitive combat system.
Polygon’s Giovanni Colantoni described the game as “a battle worth surviving,” but only sometimes, citing routine fights, recycled bosses, and a progression system that doesn’t feel rewarding enough. “It feels like a great 12-hour game stretched to an exhausting 25-hour one. Piecemeal progression and recycled bosses go hand-in-hand with repetitive rift-closing missions and backtracks through previous levels to clear busy work sidequests,” Colantoni writes.
Chris Carter of ScreenRant also noted the repetitiveness of bosses and enemies, but added that it takes little away from the overall game experience, writing: “Even with some of those shortcomings, Onimusha: Way of the Sword is a triumph. There’s a lot to really dig into here if you’re a hardcore action fan, especially if you jack up the difficulty and let it rip.”
IGN’s Will Borger, meanwhile, had nothing but high praise for the game, writing: “There are moments in Onimusha: Way of the Sword where everything else fades. The controller falls away, the universe collapses, and the distance between you and Miyamoto Musashi is annihilated. There is nothing but move and counter move, sword clashing against sword, call and response. You will risk everything for another moment, another chance, and do it again and again until you claim victory or your chances are spent.”