Is Onimusha: Way of the Sword a Soulslike? Difficulty Explained

The official answer, in the director’s words

Capcom has been unusually direct. Director Satoru Nihei told AUTOMATON the game “isn’t an open-world game, and it certainly isn’t a punishing die-and-retry (soulslike) game either,” positioning it instead as a straight-line evolution of what Onimusha has always been: a swordplay action game. His stated design goal is inclusive: games are expensive, and he doesn’t “want to make a game that you can’t enjoy until the end” — players who struggle with action games should be able to finish with some effort.

Why everyone asks anyway

Because from a screenshot it pattern-matches: a lone swordsman, stamina bars, parry timing, executions, soul pickups. The demo dispelled it for most testers — the rhythm is faster, levels are stage-based (with a wider “open-town” Kyoto hub later, per the director), death is cheap, and the game never withholds progress behind mastery. One German outlet titled its demo report “I am just happy that it is not a soulslike.” The systems that look borrowed — posture damage, executions — resolve through the Issen family, which is closer to classic Onimusha than to FromSoftware.

Difficulty options: Story and Action

Mode	Who it’s for	What actually changes
Story	Narrative-first players, action newcomers	Clearer on-screen prompts and more lenient input windows — parries and Issen trigger more easily. Explicitly not just an enemy-stat nerf.
Action	The intended standard experience	Full timing demands as designed
Custom sliders	Everyone (added for launch)	Finer per-parameter adjustment, announced after demo feedback ⚠ parameter list not yet published

The “too easy” controversy, honestly told

After the demo crossed a million downloads, Steam threads like “Way too easy....” piled up: regular enemies wait politely and hit softly. Producer Akihito Kadowaki’s video response conceded the point while explaining it — the demo is an early slice with late-game skills pre-unlocked — and promised the final game’s bosses and regular Genma will fight harder. Worth adding the counterweight: the demo’s Ganryu boss duel is no pushover, and even Capcom’s own dev-diary acknowledged many players found him hard. The fair read going into launch: easy crowds, real bosses, with sliders to tune either way.

Versus the other samurai games

Vs Sekiro: the parry comparison is earned — TechRaptor called it the best since Sekiro — but the structure differs: Parry, Deflect and Issen resolve fights in decisive single moments rather than posture attrition, and failure costs little.
Vs Ghost of Yotei: opposite philosophies — Yotei is an open-world epic; Onimusha is a ~20-hour authored gauntlet (see game length) with supernatural dueling.
Vs Phantom Blade Zero: both are 2026-window Eastern sword games, but PBZ chases high-speed combo flash while Onimusha is read-and-punish, one decisive cut at a time. ⚠ press/community framing; no head-to-head reviews yet

Shortest version: if you bounced off soulslikes, this is designed for you to finish; if you loved Sekiro’s parry high, the ceiling is still there — it just isn’t mandatory. Try the demo and test both claims yourself.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there an easy mode?

Yes — Story mode. It goes beyond a stat nerf: clearer on-screen button prompts and more lenient input timing so parries and Issen are easier to land. The developers: “We didn’t want to just nerf the enemies and call it a day.”

Is it as hard as Sekiro?

By every demo account, no. The parry rhythm draws the comparison — TechRaptor called it the best parry since Sekiro — but there is no posture-grind war of attrition and no punishing death loop. It rewards the same reads without the same cost of failure.

Why did people call the demo too easy?

Regular demo enemies rarely pressure you, and over a million players noticed. The producer’s answer: it is an early-game slice with some late-game skills pre-unlocked, and the final game’s bosses and regular Genma “will put up a tougher fight.”

Is there a harder mode above Action?

Unannounced. The series tradition of unlockable extreme modes makes one plausible, but no source confirms it — we will update at launch.