Onimusha: Way of the Sword release date pushed forward, its devs deciding they'd rather fight vampires than cosmic entities and Scottish horrors

September bloodbath switch-up

Ah, don't worry, we're not stressing about that. That's essentially what the makes of samurai action battler Onimusha: Way of the Sword said late last month when it was pointed out to them that their game'll be fighting a lot of competition when it arrives amid the September gamepocalypse. Having initially opted to stick with their planned September 25th release, Capcom have now decided to bring Onimusha forward to September 4th.

As a result of the switch, Onimusha's now set to come out a day after vampire RPG The Blood of Dawnwalker, but avoids arriving a day after Control Resonant, Silent Hill: Townfall, and equally big hitter Garfield: Escape from Monday. It's a move that makes all the sense in the world, assuming escaping September entirely in a similar fashion to Valor Mortis wasn't possible.

With the change, Capcom have opted to turn Onimusha's pre-order bonus of a Lion Dog charm and "Sealed Curse" sword skin into an "early adopter bonus" claimable by grabbing the game via the Steam or Epic stores by September 25th at 4:59PM PT / 7:59PM ET, which is just before 1AM on September 26th UK time. "The demo will receive an update in the future to address this, but will not contain new content," Capcom added. "Players who have save data from the demo will still receive the bonus in the full game."

Given it's still going to have to fight for oxygen with a game from some ex-Witcher 3 devs, Onimusha's by no means been pulled entirely out of the fire, even if its foes are far less numerous.

"I'm hoping for some proper freakiness because Way Of The Sword seems quite routine in many respects, and competition in the feudal Japanese nightmare bastard 'em up genre is stiff," Edwin wrote after attending a hands-off demo of Capcom's game last year. "Sekiro aside, there's Team Ninja's Nioh series, which is soon to celebrate its third outing. So far, the new Onimusha plays things quieter than either Sekiro or Nioh, to the point of seeming plodding. This perhaps shouldn't be a surprise. Onimusha began life as, essentially, Resident Evil with samurai, and while the old fixed perspectives are gone, you can still see that legacy in the relatively contained layout and pacing, and in creepier flourishes such as the ability to witness the souls of dead villagers, flowing up the temple steps at the behest of a demon king."

Will there be enough weirdness to outshine some Witchery bloodsucker-bashing? We shall see.