RETURNING TO ONIMUSHA 2
Motohide Eshiro on updating Capcom’s supernatural sequel for contemporary systems
» [PC] Movement in Onimusha2will be greatly refined, although you can still go back to the original ‘tank controls’ if you so wish to.
Despite being a huge success on the PlayStation 2, theOnimushaseries has all but disappeared in recent years. We’ll be getting a brand-new game in the form of Onimusha: Way Of The Swordnext year, but Capcom certainly hasn’t been complacent and has just released a remaster of Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny.
"I wanted to let people play the remaster and feel like they’re getting the experience they might have had back in the early Noughties"
MOTOHIDE ESHIRO
We were lucky enough to speak to Motohide Eshiro, who not only directed the original game, but is also directing the remaster. Interestingly, while Capcom has been properly remaking its early Resident Evil games, it is going down the remaster route with the early Onimusha titles, meaning quality-of-life improvements and updated visuals rather than fully overworked gameplay mechanics. Eshiro tells us that as Capcom was creating a brand-new overhaul of Onimusha for new systems, it was keen for players to simply rediscover the original games (the first Onimusha was re-released in 2019). “We simply decided to continue that strategy, rather than going through the whole series and remaking each title in turn,” Eshiro explains. “Because Onimusha 2, until this release, hasn’t been playable on modern systems, that just felt like a better fit rather than going back and completely redoing the games from scratch.”