Onimusha: Way of the Sword sold more than one million units worldwide on Friday, its first day on sale, according to Capcom, and that launch was enough to push cumulative sales for the entire Onimusha series past 10 million units. It’s a notable milestone for a franchise that hadn’t seen a new entry since Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams in 2006, and it comes just four months after Capcom moved the game up three weeks from its original September 25 date.
Capcom credits the launch to its pre-release push, which included multiple demo releases and hands-on exhibitions. The first demo went live around the June Capcom Spotlight, and an expanded version dropped during gamescom, where the game went on to win Best Gameplay and Best PlayStation Game. The publisher also laid some groundwork last year with the Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny remaster, which Capcom said at the time was meant to get a new generation interested in the series ahead of Way of the Sword.
To compare against another recent Capcom recent launch, Pragmata needed two days to reach one million units back in April. Capcom frames Way of the Sword as part of a stated strategy to reactivate IPs that haven’t had a new title in a while, alongside its usual cadence of major releases each year, and the company said as much when it reported 23.8 million games sold in a single quarter over the summer. If a 20-year-old series can do a million on day one, expect Capcom to keep digging through the back catalog.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is available now on PlayStation 5, XBOX Series X|S, Switch 2, and PC. Set in Edo-era Kyoto, it stars Miyamoto Musashi wielding the Oni Gauntlet against the Genma, and the Switch 2 version adds optional Joy-Con 2 motion controls for sword combat and bow aiming.
