In a press release published on its website to mark the announcement of Onimusha: Way of the Sword and the unnamed Okami sequel, Capcom has stated that in addition to the two newly-announced games, the company is also looking to revive even more dormant franchises that haven’t been active in a while.

“In addition to regularly releasing major new titles each year, Capcom is focusing on re-activating dormant IPs that haven’t had a new title launch recently,” the press release reads. “The company is working to further enhance corporate value by leveraging its rich library of content, which includes reviving past IPs like the two titles announced above, in order to continuously produce highly efficient, high-quality titles.”

The list of Capcom properties that have been MIA for years but also continue to have large fanbases hoping for a revival is long. Earlier this year, Capcom sent out a survey asking players if they would be interested in revivals of a number of dormant properties, and alongside Onimusha and Okami, several other Capcom franchises were also mentioned in the survey, alongside the likes of Dino Crisis, Breath of Fire, Dead Rising, Lost Planet, and more. Read more on that through here.

Of course, earlier this year, we got Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, with more Dead Rising titles also once again potentially on the table, while Dragon’s Dogma 2 also launched this year, coming more than a decade after its predecessor. Clearly, then, Capcom is willing to bring more of its properties back from the dead, and hopefully, we’ll be seeing plenty more of that in the near future.

METROID PRIME 4

Nearly two decades on from the launch of the last Metroid Prime game, the wait for a sequel continues. Metroid Prime 4 was originally announced seven years ago, all the way back in 2017, and after a couple years of radio silence, in 2019, Nintendo revealed that development on the title had been rebooted. And since then? Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Metroid Prime 4 continues to be in development at Retro Studios, but five years into its rebooted development cycle, we still don’t know anything about the game other than the fact that it’s being worked on.

PRAGMATA

We don’t see new IP from Capcom very often, so it’s always exciting to see one get announced. Four years ago, we got one in the form of Pragmata, a cool looking sci-fi title that turned more than a few heads. Four years on though, things haven’t really moved forward much (or at all). We still don’t have any idea what the heck this game is, we’ve seen barely anything of it since it got announced, and a while back, it got delayed indefinitely. Whether or not this is going to be another Deep Down is the question that we can’t help but keep coming back to.

BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL 2

Oh boy, where do we even begin with this one. The wait for Beyond Good and Evil 2 had dragged on long enough even before it was announced, and when, impossibly enough, it was announced, things somehow only got worse. We’re approaching the seventh anniversary of Beyond Good and Evil 2’s announcement, and by now, the game has become the definition of vaporware. After countless delays, development troubles, project reboots, and a total lack of communication from Ubisoft on what the state of the project is, it’s looking unlikelier by the day that this game will ever see the light of day.

DINO CRISIS

Capcom has done an incredible job remaking Resident Evil games to this point, but the one remake that fans keep asking for that ever seems to come isn’t a Resident Evil game at all (well, one of them is. More on that in a bit). Demands for a new Dino Crisis game have been growing louder by the day, as fans continue to salivate over the prospect of a full-fledged survival horror Dino Crisis reboot that’s built on the RE Engine and takes its fair share of learnings for the Resident Evil franchise. Up to this point, chances of that happening anytime soon have looked slim- but Capcom has shown a willingness to dive into its back catalog more than a few times now, so maybe the sun will shine one day on Dino Crisis. 

ONIMUSHA

Here’s another classic Capcom franchise that has been dormant for too long. To be fair, Capcom did try to show Onimusha at least a little bit of love with a remastered release of the original game in 2019. But since then, the franchise has once again fallen off the face of the earth entirely. Its fusion of character action combat and Resident Evil-style design has endeared the series to a sizeable fanbase over the years, so hopefully, it won’t be too long before we get a long overdue new mainline Onimusha entry.

RESIDENT EVIL: CODE – VERONICA REMAKE

Let’s stick with Capcom a little longer, because of course, Resident Evil: Code – Veronica is another game fans have been to see back in the limelight for a while now. While there’s obviously been no shortage of Resident Evil remakes, as we continue to move down the list, with each new release, the demand for Code Veronica to return grows louder and louder. Thus far, Capcom hasn’t budged on its apparent strategy of sticking only with numbered entries for remakes, but hopefully, that won’t be the case for too long. After all, there’s only so many numbered entries they can remake, right?

SYSTEM SHOCK 3

Whether or not System Shock 3 will even ever get made is massively in doubt at this point. First officially announced all the way back in 2016, the long-anticipated sequel was in the works at OtherSide Entertainment, with the project being led by System Shock mastermind Warren Spector. As the years continued to go and details on the game remained scant, concern surrounding its development grew, before confirmation arrived from Spector a couple of years ago that OtherSide Entertainment hadn’t worked on System Shock 3 since 2019. At this point, even saying that the project is in limbo would be a charitable description.

THE ELDER SCROLLS 6

It’s been thirteen years since the last mainline Elder Scrolls game released, and it’s going to be several more before the next one arrives. What’s insane is that we have known in an official capacity that The Elder Scrolls 6 is a thing for as long as six years at this point. Back in 2018, Bethesda announced the fantasy RPG with essentially a logo reveal, but it was only a few months ago that the game entered full production, with the studio having been occupied with Starfield for the last several years. At this point, development is presumably going to take around 4-5 years (at best), which means we still have a long wait ahead of us.

HOLLOW KNIGHT: SILKSONG

Team Cherry, for all that’s good in this world, please tell us when Hollow Knight: Silksong is coming. The expansion-turned-sequel was officially announced five years ago, and at one point, when the game had a launch window for some time before July 2023, it looked like we were this close to the game actually coming out. That, of course, didn’t pan out, and once again, we currently have no idea when Hollow Knight: Silksong will come out. Surely it’s gotta be this year, right? Right?

MEGA MAN LEGENDS 3

Capcom’s handling of the Mega Man franchise has been all over the place, in that even though we do keep getting new collections and re-releases, actual new instalments have been few and far between for a while now. But as starved as Mega Man fans might be for a new mainline entry, Mega Man Legends fans have been starved for even longer. It’s been close to two and a half decades since the launch of the last Legends game, and at this point, Mega Man Legends 3 is nothing short of the unlikeliest of pie-in-the-sky scenarios. But hey, we can always dream, right?

GEARS 6

That there will be a Gears 6 is pretty much a guarantee, but it’s taking an unusually long time to rear its head. Gears 5 launched nearly five years ago, which means this is now the longest we’ve ever gone without a new mainline Gears of War game. Leaks have claimed that that’s going to be The Coalition’s next title, but how long it’ll be before we it releases (or we see it) is anyone’s guess right now.

BLOODBORNE REMASTER

Sony absolutely loves its remakes and remasters, but for some strange reason, that doesn’t seem to apply to Bloodborne. FromSoftware’s seminal action RPG is an absolute fan-favourite and widely regarded as one of the best PlayStation games to date, but demands for a remake or a remaster, even though they’ve grown consistently louder, have gone unheard. Hell, we haven’t even seen a 60 FPS patch for the game on PS5.

JAK AND DAXTER

In Sony’s treasure trove of dormant legacy IP, Jak and Daxter is probably the one that fans are most wistful about to this day. Naughty Dog is, of course, unlikely to ever work on a new Jak game again (hell, they’re probably not even going back to Uncharted, let alone Jak), but might we perhaps see another studio be given the responsibility of making a new instalment in the action platforming franchise? It seems incredibly unlikely right now, but there’s no denying how popular Jak and Daxter is, so maybe that will end up counting for something in the future.

BANJO-KAZOOIE

Speaking of dormant franchises that have been slumbering for far too long, Banjo-Kazooie is another one that just refuses to come back. You have to go back to 2008 for the series’ last mainline game, and the last mainline game was Nuts and Bolts, which was… not great. Xbox boss Phil Spencer has suggested a few times that Microsoft is well aware of the level of demand for Banjo-Kazooie, but with Rare having its hands full and even Toys for Bob having bought back its independence, it’s hard to see which studio is going to take on such a project, if it ever even gets greenlit.

SPLINTER CELL REMAKE

To be fair, it hasn’t been that long since Ubisoft announced that it was remaking Splinter Cell. seeing as the project was confirmed to be in the works in 2021. But of course, not only have we seen nothing of the game since then, there’s also the fact that Splinter Cell as a whole has been MIA for far too long. Its last mainline entry, Splinter Cell Blacklist, is over a decade old at this point, and in the time since then, fans of the series have had little more than cancelled VR games and Ghost Recon DLC to go on. Hopefully, it won’t be much longer before the remake sees the light of day.

Capcom has recently sent out a survey to fans, in which it asks ten questions, a few of which are focused on potential new instalments (or remakes) for older, inactive Capcom properties. One question asks, “are there any Capcom game series (including spinoff games) that you would like to see get a sequel or new game?” Among many other franchises, some notable ones that are listed include Dino Crisis, Onimusha, Okami, Dead Rising, Darkstalkers, Breath of Fire, and Lost Planet.

Another question asks, “is there a game that you would like to see completely remade with the latest technology, including character design and story direction?” Some of the available options include Onimusha 1, 2, and 3; Ace Attorney 1, 2, and 3; Breath of Fire 1, 2, and 3; Mega Man 1, 2, and 3; and Final Fight.

Interestingly enough, the survey’s penultimate question asks about any other complaints that you would like to share with the company, with one of the options provided being “reboot old IPs already!” At the same time, another option reads “release more original titles, not sequels!”, so there’s that.

Capcom is, of course, no stranger to sending out surveys to gauge fan opinion on a number of things, and the company has been known to actually take results for such surveys into consideration- though how heavily they might influence decisions on, say, whether or not we’ll see a new Dino Crisis or Breath of Fire game is an altogether different question.

If nothing else, Capcom has confirmed that it intends to keep making more Resident Evil remakes, so the company does very much intend to plumb the depths of its rich back catalog to bolster its future output in some capacity.

inFamous 4

The inFamous series is famous for providing a power fantasy like no other, and Sucker Punch did an amazing job of meshing those designs with a well-crafted morality system that has the capability to affect not only the story but also the gameplay. It continues to be fresh even after all these years, and no game has really come close to matching the essence of inFamous. An inFamous 4 could make use of the PS5’s power to render some amazing visuals and explore new gameplay concepts, but with Sucker Punch most likely occupied with Ghost of Tsushima – there’s a pretty slim chance that such a project might see the light of day.

Deus Ex

It may sound counter-intuitive considering the scope of Mankind Divided and Human Revolution, but Deus Ex has always thrived on the number of choices it gives players. The different play styles, dialogues and approaches would fit well within the context of a tighter narrative and maybe encourage multiple playthroughs. As for what kind of story it would tell, given all the factions, conspiracies and whatnot, and whether it should feature Adam Jensen or a brand new character remains to be seen.

Now, the streaming platform has announced another major collaboration. Netflix is working with Capcom on an anime based on Onimusha. Takashi Miike and Shinya Sugai as the co-creators and directors, with animation done by Sublimation. Meanwhile, protagonist Musashi Miyamoto will be modeled on actor Toshiro Mifune.

The series will use 3D CGI character models against hand-drawn 2D environments, as well as “modern-day animation technology.” A few images from the series have also been revealed. Check them out below.

Capcom and Netflix’s previous collaboration – an anime based on Dragon’s Dogma – didn’t yield particularly remarkable results, so hopefully things will turn out different this time.

Of course, if the Onimusha anime does well, series fans will be hoping that that eventually leads into a new mainline instalment for the long-dormant franchise. Recent successful adaptations – such as the aforementioned Cyberpunk: Edgerunners – have generated a greater interest in the games they’ve been based on, so there’s certainly hope for Onimusha, one would imagine.

A new Onimusha game was one of several unannounced in-development projects at Capcom that were mentioned in the large-scale ransomware leak that hit the company in 2020. Read more on that through here.

It's your first look at ONIMUSHA, an anime based on CAPCOM's legendary game. Created by Takashi Miike and Shinya Sugai from Sublimation, with Musashi Miyamoto modeled after Toshiro Mifune #TUDUM#TUDUMjapan#ONIMUSHA#鬼武者 pic.twitter.com/oeX6FO2hWS

— Netflix Anime (@NetflixAnime) September 25, 2022

pic.twitter.com/NcKtTe22ew

— Netflix Anime (@NetflixAnime) September 25, 2022

ZUBAT (POKEMON)

If you’ve spent even a couple of minutes in a cave in a Pokemon game – especially one of the earlier ones – you’ve cursed out at the sight of a Zubat. These pesky Pokemon appear with far too much regularity, forcing players to exit out of battles what feels like one every few seconds. If you don’t have some Repels handy, you’re in for a true test of patience.

Amidst Capcom’s renewed focus on revitalizing franchises and remaking old games, one of the names that’s come up in demands for something similar most often is Dino Crisis. The survival horror franchise is one that fans have wanted a comeback for for a long time- and it seems fans are not the only ones who did.

A new video by DidYouKnowGaming charting the history of Dead Rising developers Capcom Vancouver and everything that led to the studio being shuttered mentions that before it got closed, the studio pitched several projects to Capcom. One of these was a Dino Crisis revival, but apparently, their bosses in Japan shot down the project because they were “unwilling to make the significant investment in new technology that the project would have required.”

And that’s not the only project that Capcom Vancouver pitched to no avail. Other games that they reportedly wanted to develop that Capcom shot down were a new Onimusha entry, an action-focused RE game called Resident Evil X, and a new sidescrolling Mega Man game.

Finally, Capcom Vancouver were also supposedly working on Dead Rising 5 at the time of their shuttering. The game, which was being made on Unreal Engine 4, was going to feature Dead Rising 2 protagonist Chuck Greene. It was going to be set between the events of Dead Rising 2 and 3, and would have taken place in Santa Catarina, Mexico.

A Dino Crisis revival has been mentioned in recent reports as well, which have stated that no revival of the franchise is currently in development (or even being planned). Onimusha did get a remaster a couple years ago, but Capcom haven’t really talked much about the property since then.

The publisher has said that it will be focusing more on franchise revivals going forward, so… keep hope alive, I guess?

Rage – God of War Series

Kratos has always had his share of anger issues but on the other hand, his Rage modes throughout the series are just incredible fun. The first game is fairly straightforward – more damage dealt, less damage received. Rage of the Titans in God of War 2 upped this by allowing reduced damage from foes, immunity to knockbacks and debuffs, and up to triple the damage dealt. Then there’s Rage of Sparta in God of War 3 which manifested the Blade of Olympus while also providing increased movement, damage resistance and so on. However, we have to give it to God of War (2018)’s Spartan Rage where Kratos simply wales on enemies with his bare fists, gaining health regen and damage resistance in the process.

Over the years, we’ve also seen a lot of games with absolutely horrendous voice acting, sometimes with a particular character, other times in the entire game as a whole. And while that’s become less common now than it was a few years back, it still happens every now and again. In this feature, we’ll be taking a look at fifteen games with some of the worst voice over performances we have ever come across.

TIDUS IN FINAL FANTASY 10

The scene in Final Fantasy 10 where Tidus and Yuna laugh into oblivion like maniacs has gone down in history as one of the cringiest in our industry- and for good reason. As bad as that scene is, though, it’s also emblematic of just how bad Tidus’ voicework was for the entirety of the game. Sure, Final Fantasy 10 does deserve some slack, considering that it was the first game in the series to even have voice acting- it’s a good thing the series learned from its mistakes.