Burning Sword: Death Sun Is Looking Like a Great Mix of Onimusha And Ninja Gaiden

2024 was a rollercoaster year for gaming with plenty of strong titles releasing left, right, and center through and through. We got to experience some pretty good remakes including but not limited to Silent Hill 2 and FF7 Rebirth alongside exciting new IPs like Black Myth: Wukong and sequels like Helldivers 2. 2025 too has also gotten off to a solid but slow start. With games like Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Dynasty Warriors Origins, Monster Hunter Wilds and Sniper Elite Resistance leading the charge. As we move into the second quarter of 2025, there’s a whole bunch of new games to look forward to and get excited about.

Hack and slash games seem to be on a sort of resurgence as of late, with IPs like Ninja Gaiden returning after a long hiatus. Of course, many new developers are also taking charge and coming up with new games of this ilk which also includes Nomadic Games’ Burning Sword: Death Sun. Currently slated to release sometime in Q1 2025 (but seems like it will be delayed), Burning Sword: Death Sun could very well turn out to be one of the biggest games of this year.

One of the biggest reasons why that is the case has to be the style, which is a rather important factor when it comes to nailing the charisma of a game of this ilk. Games like Metal Gear Rising Revengeance or Ninja Gaiden put tons of effort into creating a distinct aesthetic with the fighting animations and art styles, and while Burning Sword: Death Sun lends that style from Wuxia arts, it somehow manages to look and feel unique.

Just take a look at the snippets of combat, and you can see that the developer has put quite the effort into creating a distinct feel with the moment-to-moment combat of the game. There’s a sense of flow to the combat, with one animation seamlessly blending into the other which makes it fast-paced. But it’s also methodical, with each move carrying an intent and meeting, and that balance between contrasting elements puts it a lot closer to something like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice than Metal Gear Rising Revengeance.

Then there are the animations at play, which also blend sophistication with acrobatics in a way that feels pretty authentic for a game inspired by martial arts. Again, that’s also pretty fitting for such a combat loop that blends methodical play with smooth flowing fast-paced combat. Just notice how gracefully our protagonist slashes flaming swords to enemies, and how quickly he swerves against enemy blows to save himself from imminent damage. Nomadic also nails the impact of these blows, with enemies and the player also breaking stances immediately after getting hit by a strong attack.

Burning Sword: Death Sun puts players in the shoes of Zhāng Yì Xiàn, who is a mighty warrior excelling in Wuxia arts. The game takes place in ancient China where turmoil reigns supreme, leaving the land of the kingdom in ruins. Several sects with distinct fighting styles fight for dominance over the kingdom, and fierce demonic clans are also on the loose. Our protagonist Zhang Yi Xian is also the leader of one such Crimson Dust Demon Sect hails from the darkest depths of hell and has a singular purpose of battling the supreme leader Gao Tian Qi who killed his family.

While this is a very surface-level exposition of the game’s narrative, it seems quite evident that the story wouldn’t be something to write home about with its over-reliance on genre tropes. But that’s not the end of the world for Burning Sword: Death Sun, as having a minimal narrative might just work wonders for its case. Instead of subjecting players to a story that’s just not engaging at all, Burning Sword could just use those devices to get players from point A to point B and spend most of its development efforts on what actually matters i.e. the combat.

And Nomadic Games seems to have put in a lot of work to create a compelling gameplay loop. Burning Sword’s combat starts out rather simple, with the protagonist just being able to switch between light and heavy attacks and dodge incoming enemy attacks. But as you slowly gain familiarity with these basic mechanics, the gameplay opens up with new special attacks available to you alongside elemental moves.

Slowly but gradually, slashing through hordes of enemies becomes second nature to you and chaining these moves and attacks ends up being almost an act of personal expression as you swerve gracefully amidst sword slashes and last-minute dodges. Different enemy types force you to change tactics rapidly, which encourages you to be dynamic in your approach towards combat and fully explore the spectrum of moves on offer.

Apart from combat, Burning Sword also puts some emphasis on exploration with additional areas available for players to explore. We also got to see some snippets of our protagonist scaling along walls, and jumping across gaps – so it seems fair to guess that the game would have breather platforming sections between combat encounters, something akin to DOOM.

Burning Sword is a largely linear game with little to no open-world element, but again that is something that could work in its favour. Instead of giving into modern AAA trends and creating a game that doesn’t really jive with the rest of the mechanics, Nomadic Games is crafting a more concise and tailored experience where each aspect is intentional and built with purpose.

Not a lot is known about how progression works in the case of Burning Sword, but we can see that downing enemies nets you experience points which will most likely be cashed out in exchange for new moves and incremental upgrades to your health and energy stores. Nomadic Games should take a page out of Sekiro’s book in that case, and create skill trees around actual additions to your toolset instead of raising arbitrary numbers with each power-up.

Any great hack-and-slash game thrives on a sense of power fantasy, and Sekiro does that wonderfully by making that power fantasy feel earned. Health and attack upgrades are rather sparsely spread out, making it vital to really nail down the mechanics and parry timings as opposed to just farming out XP and brute forcing your way through a tough boss fight.

And that brings us over to the boss fights, which is yet another important tentpole in the case of any great hack-and-slash game. Unfortunately, Nomadic Games hasn’t revealed much about how boss fights would play out – but if the rest of the game and its inspirations are anything to go by, Burning Sword would be home to some really high-octane fights which should mix together show stopping spectacle and white knuckle tests of mettle. Hopefully, we get to experience some of the best boss fights of the year with this one.

The visuals are also a big drawing factor in the case of Burning Sword: Death Sun. It is built using Epic’s Unreal Engine 5 and makes good use of the engine’s toolkit to create compelling vistas that players can gorge upon for hours and hours on end. Character models are highly detailed with dense skin meshes and physically based materials on display, and the environments are similarly built using high-quality assets that blend well with a ray tracing-powered global illumination system to create high-quality backdrops to the fighting sequences.

Blades of grass sway gracefully to the tune of the winds, and plenty of post-processing effects can be seen firing at all cylinders during combat when alpha particles and volumetric smoke are emitted from elemental attacks. Some praise also needs to be attributed to the excellent art direction on display, which seamlessly blends a grounded setting with supernatural elements to create something that genuinely stands out amidst contemporaries of the genre.

As noted earlier, Burning Sword: Death Sun was targeting a Q1 2025 release date . However, since we are already in the final month of Q1 and with no release date in sight, it’s likely the game has been delayed. No new release window has been communicated at the time of writing this, so we are hopeful that the developers will be using the additional time to further polish the game and its mechanics.

In conclusion, Burning Sword: Death Sun does have quite a few things going for it. Firstly, Nomadic Games is certainly passionate about this project, and the accurate depiction of Wuxia arts and the attention to detail in the visuals is clearly indicative of that passion. Secondly, the recently released demo on Steam also gives players a taste of what’s in store along with some confidence on what the developer is trying to achieve with this release. Hopefully, Nomadic Games will take those strengths and craft something that can live up to the potential that it is showcasing with its trailers and the recently released demo.

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