Despite some initial player feedback on its difficulty, Capcom believes Onimusha: Way of the Sword strikes the right balance of challenge and progression. Game director Satoru Nihei stated in a recent interview that player data supports the team's satisfaction with the final difficulty level.
Even before the game's release, the challenge presented by enemies and encounters in Onimusha: Way of the Sword was a topic of discussion. The pre-launch demo divided players, with some finding the combat exciting and akin to the Nioh series, while others felt it was too easy. However, the final release has seen a shift in this perception, with some of the criticized elements becoming less pronounced.
Nihei explained that the development team aimed for a difficulty that would allow players to progress through the story while still offering a sense of accomplishment upon overcoming challenges. "There are points where [players] do stumble, they do die, they do get defeated," Nihei told PC Gamer. "But they're able to overcome that and progress. That was what we set out to achieve in terms of pitching the difficulty for the game: We wanted players to be able to progress through the story, but also have some challenge to it, so they get a sense of satisfaction from defeating enemies."
The intention was not for Way of the Sword to be as punishing as titles like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice or the Nioh series. "We think it's hit the right spot in terms of the difficulty, in terms of where we wanted to place it," Nihei added.
Capcom has been monitoring in-game behavior data from players. "We've been looking at the data that comes back from people playing," Nihei revealed, "so we can see where people are struggling and how they're progressing through the game."
"What we've seen in the trends in the data is that it's close to what we set out to achieve, in terms of difficulty," he concluded.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword has received critical acclaim, with some reviewers praising it as a successor to Sekiro and a benchmark for parry-based combat. In Eurogamer's review, it was highlighted for advancing the action genre without relying on Soulslike tropes, with the reviewer stating, "There is no game out there that makes you feel more like a swordsman of legend than Onimusha: Way of the Sword."