As of late, most AAA online game firms are struggling to achieve and keep momentum in a fickle market when video games are taking longer than ever to make. Capcom, in the meantime, is on a scorching streak. Road Fighter 6, Dragon’s Dogma 2, Monster Hunter Wilds, and the continued renaissance of the Resident Evil sequence are just some examples of the developer being in a no-skips, all-hits period. I just lately obtained an opportunity to play three of the corporate’s upcoming video games: Onimusha: Approach of the Sword, Pragmata, and Resident Evil Requiem, and my restricted time with every spoke each to the range within the firm’s line-up, but in addition indicated a refreshing “again to fundamentals” mentality that a number of AAA firms can’t appear to fathom in 2025. These video games really feel like they’re from a special period, and that’s for the higher.
Onimusha: Approach of the Sword was the primary sport I performed throughout my preview session, and after 20 years away, the newest Onimusha feels surprisingly untouched by the RPG trappings which have latched onto many fashionable motion video games. The part I performed was the identical one I noticed at Summer season Sport Fest, which confirmed samurai warrior Musashi Miyamoto slicing his manner by a largely derelict village overrun by underworldly monsters. At first blush, Approach of the Sword would possibly really feel a bit easy to the trendy motion sport fan who has turn out to be so used to ability timber and Soulslike problem. However there was a time within the PlayStation 2 period when parry and dodge mechanic was sufficient to fulfill you for about 10 to fifteen hours.
Once I performed Approach of the Sword, I used to be caught off guard by how “of its time” it felt. It’s as if it picks up the place the sequence left off 20 years in the past, however with a bit of contemporary aptitude and finesse. The boss battle on the finish of the demo towards Ganryu Sasaki, a fellow Oni Gauntlet-wearing swordsman, was difficult sufficient to show that skillful swordplay is sufficient to carry an motion sport in 2025, even because the style extra often de-emphasizes these core fundamentals.
That very same streamlined focus was evident once I performed Pragmata. I already wrote up impressions of the demo I performed at Summer season Sport Fest, and this appointment was largely centered on the identical early part of the sport, simply with a boss battle on the finish. Like Approach of the Sword, the sci-fi puzzle shooter seems like one thing plucked out of a earlier era. Its over-the-shoulder taking pictures, brutalist sci-fi aesthetic, and pop sport setup make it really feel precisely like one thing you’ll’ve seen on a GameStop shelf in the course of the PS360 era. As I stated again in June, it retains from feeling like a rote retread of previous tropes by combining its taking pictures with a real-time puzzle-solving ingredient that has you breaking down enemy defenses and opens a window to your bullets to really do actual harm. Individually, these mechanics are easy and maybe unremarkable; collectively, they create a big-budget shooter that might have been the form of enjoyable, one-off experiment an organization like Capcom would have launched between massive sequels. At the same time as Capcom has put out hit after hit, the corporate has turn out to be fairly reliant on sequels in the identical manner just about each different AAA developer has. It’s refreshing to see that it nonetheless has the chops to place out one thing like Pragmata, a non-sequel which can pull from previous motifs, but in addition feels novel as video games prefer it have gone out of favor in recent times.
That brings us to Resident Evil Requiem, the newest entry in a sequence that has spent the higher a part of a decade reinventing itself. What I performed of the ninth mainline sport within the long-running survival horror sequence felt extra evocative of Haunting Floor, a cult basic hide-and-seek horror sport Capcom put out in 2005, than the misadventures of Chris Redfield and Leon Kennedy. As we see extra of it, Requiem might finally undertake the extra action-oriented movement of 2021’s Resident Evil Village or keep within the escape room-esque hide-and-seek loop of the section I performed, however within the demo part, at the very least, it felt like the sport had been stripped all the way down to its core parts to go away you with a terrifying helplessness. All I needed to defend myself from a horrifying monstrosity that adopted me backwards and forwards by a dimly lit hallway was my wits, glass bottles, and no matter mild sources I might discover to scare it away. Resident Evil has been experimenting with what it means to hold that title for some time, and so maybe it’s becoming that what I performed of Requiem didn’t make me consider Resident Evil a lot in any respect, however relatively of a long-lost gem that Capcom has largely forgotten.
All three of those video games are popping out in 2026, and by then, we’ll be one other journey across the solar faraway from the video games that seemingly impressed every of them, they usually might really feel much more out of time. Even so, Capcom’s dedication to the previous methods of doing issues, when it seems like each different month we’re listening to a couple of beloved franchise or firm being handcuffed to fashionable practices solely meant to make each sport a time suck, is a giant a part of the explanation it’s put out largely bangers for the previous few years. I’m not normally one to say “issues have been higher again in my day,” however it’s good to have reminders that not each developer has discovered the mistaken classes. No less than one main participant is prepared to return to the properly, discover what labored earlier than, and meaningfully iterate on it as a substitute of breaking it aside to show it into one thing we now not acknowledge.
