Capcom is slowly ramping up its marketing for Onimusha: Way of the Sword, the franchise’s first mainline title since 2006’s Dawn of Dreams. While the next Okami, also announced at The Game Awards, is further away, it’s confirmed to be in development on RE Engine.
Producer Kiyohiko Sakata of Machine Head Works (also working on the project alongside M-Two) also revealed its role to IGN, acting as a bridge for developer Clovers. “The way that Machine Head Works is involved now, working together with Capcom and Clovers, is that, of course, we have Capcom as the major IP holder of Ōkami, deciding the major direction of the games. And we have Clovers as the development lead for this project.
“Machine Head Works comes in by having experience working with Capcom previously on several titles, so we know what Capcom needs to create the game. That’s something that Machine Head Works has the experience and knowledge of. We also have experience working with Kamiya-san before as well. So we have both experiences of Capcom and Clovers, and we’re acting sort of like a bridge between Clovers and Capcom.
“In addition to this, we also have experience working with the game engine we are using for this project, RE Engine. So, Clovers’ developers haven’t had any experience using this engine, but Machine Head Works has experience using it. So we’re aiding them. Also under us, Machine Head Works, we have people who have actually had the experience of working with the original Ōkami game and will be aiding us with the development of this title.”
Though Capcom producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi couldn’t delve into more details, he confirmed why the company opted for RE Engine. “We believe that without RE Engine at this point, we wouldn’t be able to realize [director Hideki] Kamiya-san’s artistic dreams for this project.”
Director Hideki Kamiya added, “So RE Engine is, of course, famous for showing the best of the games that they have. Very, very good expressively. And so we believe people are also expecting and awaiting the RE Engine level of quality now for this game.”
Sakata also noted, “With today’s technology, we are able to achieve all of this that we were trying to achieve back in the days and perhaps even greater, now that we have the RE Engine as well working with us.”
The results should be interesting because as well as RE Engine has worked with titles like Resident Evil 4 remake, Street Fighter 6 and Devil May Cry 5, it’s struggled with open-world games like Dragon’s Dogma 2. Even Monster Hunter Wilds had some performance and fidelity issues during its betas, though the development team showcased improvements for the final game.
As for the next Okami, it doesn’t have a release date or platforms, so stay tuned for updates.
