The Onimusha franchise is in the midst of a comeback. The original Onimusha: Warlords game released on PlayStation 2 in 2001 and received sequels and spin-offs until about 2006. The first game was remastered in 2018, and now a new game, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, is coming next year, and on May 23, Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny will get the remaster treatment. Ahead of the release of the remaster, we had a chance to speak with the game’s original director, Motohide Eshiro. Eshiro worked on titles like Street Fighter II (he was in charge of Guile), and a number of other Capcom titles and franchises like Devil May Cry, Ace Attorney, and Ōkamiden. Back in 2002, Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny was the first game he directed.
We spoke with Eshiro about the challenges of remastering a PlayStation 2 game in 2025, working with late actor Yūsaku Matsuda’s wife to get his appearance right in the game, and if there is a future for games with pre-rendered backgrounds and locked-off cameras (there is for the right project).
Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny remastered is coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC on May 23.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Game Informer: There’s a teaser for Onimusha 2 at the end of the first game with a different version of Jubei. What happened with that teaser and why did Jubei change so much?
Motohide Eshiro: So, we actually started Onimusha 2 while we were still developing the first title, Onimusha: Warlords. Onimusha: Warlords wasn’t released yet when we started the project of Onimusha 2. We were still in the early stages for Onimusha 2 when Warlords came out, but we just wanted to announce that we are right now working on the new title, there’s going to be a new protagonist. The Jubei you see in the end of Onimusha 1 was really an initial design of Jubei. It wasn’t fixed yet, but we just wanted to announce the next title so the player would be excited for the new one. That is why we included him but no, eventually we just came up with a better design for him. That’s why we changed the design. But the previous design is still in Onimusha: Warlords.
Was a skin of that teaser version considered for the remaster?
No, we didn’t consider having that initial Jubei skin for the Onimusha 2 remaster. It was really just an initial design for him. There were things that they still had to do, like give more quality and get more details. Also, we decided to use Yūsaku Matsuda’s face, an actor in Japan, so his face changed, not just his costume. It was just kind of an initial draft. We just wanted to show the Jubei that we have now in the remastered version. There were no plans to add that kind of skin for the remastered version.
Was it difficult to secure Yūsaku Matsuda’s likeness either for the first game or the remaster? Was it controversial to have the face of a deceased actor in the game in 2002?
Back then it wasn’t that controversial. It was the producers’ decision to have someone like that and to use an active face for the game. We thought that would be a really fascinating thing to have him in the game. There was one big challenge to using Yūsaku Matsuda. He had already been deceased at that time when we decided to have him in the game.
All we could do was refer to images and films that he showed up in. We also didn’t have the kind of face modeling tools for development at that time, so it was really kind of handmade, 3D models. It was a really big challenge for the creators, but I think we did a really good job recreating his face.
Eventually, as we were finalizing his face model, we had his wife, Miyuki Matsuda come to the casting studio and give instructions and directions for how they should adjust Yūsaku Matsuda’s face and adapt it to Jubei’s face. It was a really, big challenge, but I think that we did a great job to make his face meticulously.
His wife came to approve – was she excited to see her husband in the game?
I couldn’t tell if she was really excited or not, but she gave really detailed instructions to us. Like, the eyebrows should be a little closer or like, you should change this part to make the appearance closer to real Yūsaku Matsuda. Her passion towards that face model told us that she really loved Yūsaku Matsuda and she just wanted to have his appearance in the game as close to his true appearance as possible. Personally, I think that she was excited to have Yūsaku Matsuda inside the game and the instructions she gave the team were really helpful.
This was my first time playing Onimusha 2. I was really surprised to see robots, TV screens, and there’s a sequence where Jubei basically rides a jet ski. What went into the decision behind having technology in what is meant to be ancient world.
What we focused on was to kind of blend the western atmosphere and the Japanese atmosphere inside the game. Not just focus on feudal Japan and making it really Japanese, but we kind of had a blend and a mix of that kind of culture and having fictional and non-fictional aspects blended.
It is set in the feudal Japan era, but it has some fantastical elements like the demons and such. And the screenwriter – his name is Noboru Sugimura – he just came up with the idea that if you have this kind of modern technology inside the game, it will be really fun to see. It will be so compelling and people will enjoy seeing it. And those kind of fantastical contraptions and powers? They run them with the technology of Oni. So, that is something that stands out for the fantastical element. We think that it is really unique and makes Onimusha 2 stand out. I’m really happy that we were able to mix in those fantastical element inside this game.
What surprised you the most about revisiting Onimusha 2 after all these years?
I replayed the original title and to bring the assets – like carrying over the assets to the remastered version? That was surprising. I looked at the original assets and just noticed that the texture of the background and the 3D models were so, so detailed. The original version was held back by the hardware and playing on CRT TVs. But now we can use full, HD monitors for the modern consoles, enabling us to bring out those details. To see those assets that we originally had in the game, that was something really surprising for me.
There’s a scene on the beach, and the water looks incredible. I was curious how, whether in the remaster or the original game, did you get the water to look so good?
Back then, when we were developing the original title, we went outside and filmed the environment. Real flowing rivers and the surface of ponds, and as you mentioned, waves near the beach. We just filmed it and processed it so that we could use it as a background inside the game. That’s why they look really natural and high quality. It just conforms to real life, so that’s why it’s in high quality.
Onimusha 2 is getting a remaster. A new Onimusha is on the way with Way of the Sword. I am not complaining, but why now?
After we released Onimusha: Warlords the remastered version, Onimusha 2 Remastered was always the next candidate for the next project. It has always been in the lineup for which title to work on next. But it was just a matter of circumstances and timing to work on the Onimusha 2 Remastered project. But after we released Onimusha: Warlords Remastered, the development team broke up and they worked on different titles.
But now, everything came together and we were able to start developing it and we also announced Onimusha: Way of the Sword. At that time, we thought, “Maybe this is the best timing to start developing Onimusha 2: Remastered version.” And now more and more people will be getting interested in the Onimusha series through the new title, and then people will come back to the classic titles through this remastered version. I’m really happy that we were able to have these titles come back again and also lead them to the next new title.
Would you like to also revisit Onimusha 3 and Dawn of Dreams?
Talking about the Onimusha series as a whole, I, personally, would be really excited to see Onimusha 3 remastered. But, Onimusha: Warlords, Onimusha 2, Onimusha, 3 – they all had different directors, so they all have a kind of different vibe. And so, in that sense, I wouldn’t work directly on an Onimusha 3 remastered version. But I would like to see Onimusha 3 be remastered so that more people will get into the series.
I found Onimusha very scary when I was young, but now, all these years later, I actually find it very funny and humorous. Was that always the intention? Or is it just that I’m playing a 20 year old game?
I worked on the original version of Onimusha: Warlords before working as the director for Onimusha 2. I was a game designer on the first game and back then, we didn’t intentionally create the game to make it goofy or funny. We wanted to bring out more of a horror taste for it. But, with that said, we did kind of design the demons to be distinctive and unique so maybe some of them will be funny and goofy. But, at least when we were developing the first title, we didn’t aim to make a funny atmosphere.
I was surprised and happy to see so many Onimusha 1 locations in Onimusha 2. Thinking back to that era of games, revisiting previous locations was not a common practice. Resident Evil: Code Veronica did it and Pokémon Gold & Silver, as well, but that was about it. Was this done as a cost-saving measure at the time? Or were you hopeful players would feel nostalgic for the old locations?
It was not about saving costs or making people feel nostalgia. It was more about how the story unfolds throughout Onimusha: Warlords and Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny. We have the same villain for both titles, Nobunaga Oda, and he’s based in history and important events related to him happened at Gifu Castle and Inabayama Castle. It was just about focusing on that villain. We thought it would be good to have that area inside of Onimusha 2, because the villain is Nobunaga again, and we should have players revisit that castle to show his cruelty and the evil side of the character.
We also have the gate made by demons inside the castle in common between the two castles. We have that castle for both sides. So, it wasn’t about saving cost or nostalgia.
Speaking of Nobunaga, why didn’t you fight Nobunaga in Onimusha: Warlords?
When we developed the first title, Onimusha: Warlords, I wasn’t the director. I wasn’t directly involved in the process of making the characters and how they would be involved in the storyline. As far as I know, the director of the first title wanted Nobunaga to be a kind of distinctive character to have in the first game and not necessarily the final boss. For Onimusha 2 I thought, “What happens if the protagonist in the second title could fight against Nobunaga?” So, the creation of the second game was kind of based on that imagining. So, at least for Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny, we wanted to include Nobunaga as the ultimate villain and the final boss.
For Onimusha 1 and 2, fans often refer to it as feudal Japan, samurai, Resident Evil. Is that a fair comparison? Was that part of the original pitch for either of the games?
I do admit that the fundamentals of that kind of game system is in both titles, Resident Evil and Onimusha. Pre-rendered backgrounds and locked cameras is something common between those types. The players who played Resident Evil really loved those kinds of pre-rendered backgrounds, so they’ve got those kind of game systems fundamentally in common, but we wanted to make a completely different game with a different vibe. So, we didn’t make the game based on Resident Evil. We just imagined it would be really fun to have a game based on feudal-era Japan with samurai, but different from Resident Evil. Onimusha is like Resident Evil in terms of game systems, but in terms of the gameplay, it’s completely different. The lore is also completely different. I personally think that it’s really a completely different title and series.
Pre-rendered backgrounds, locked-off cameras – is there a world where we get a new game like that in the future? Or is Capcom never going to do that again?
It depends on whether or not there is the game that fits that system, having pre-rendered backgrounds and locked cameras. I personally love games with the pre-rendered backgrounds and such and think they have their own unique strengths compared to full 3D titles. It would be really fun to have a new title with that kind of game system, but it just depends on whether or not there is a game to really match that kind of system.
You know what would be a good one that would match that system? Onimusha: Way of the Sword.
Well, I am not directly involved in the development of Onimusha: Way of the Sword. I can’t say if it will be good or not. I’ll leave that one to the players that will enjoy that game when it releases next year.
Considering the support characters in Onimusha 2, it made me wonder if co-op was ever considered.
We didn’t consider having co-op. What we wanted to have was for Jubei to interact with the allies and build relationships with them and get along with them. It’s really a single-player game, but I wanted to also portray the human depth of the allies. So, when you give gifts to the allies, you see their reaction and expression, but you don’t see like an affinity gauge above their character that directly tells you if they love their gift or not. I wanted similar reactions that you have in real life with people. Like, if you give a gift to someone, you see their reaction to see if they’re happy or not. Affinity gauges would make the game too game-like, so what we focused on was making the players feel like they are Jubei, but then they can interact with the allies.
In that sense, we didn’t kind of consider building co-op features inside the game. We just wanted players to feel like they are Jubei and they are fighting alongside the allies.
Were there any unexpected challenges to remastering Onimusha 2?
What was kind of unexpected is that the original title is from more than 20 years ago on PlayStation 2, so we didn’t have the kind of game engine we have these days. We had to directly run the program on the PlayStation 2 system, but this time for the remastered version, we adopted RE Engine which we use for most of the modern Capcom titles. But they can’t just directly port the original program to the RE Engine. We had to build the structure from scratch, so that was a really challenging and tough work for us. But the team did really a great job, and now we can play the game with 60 fps smoothly, so we are really happy that we were able to overcome that challenge.
Would you ever want to see a full remake of Onimusha 1 and 2 in the way that Capcom has done the Resident Evil games?
I would love to have some kind of a remake, especially for Onimusha 2. The original version was the first title I directed. It really has a special place in my heart, so I would love to see a version of Onimusha 2 with the Onimusha 3 camera – rotating cameras and 3D models like what we have for the Resident Evil remakes. Personally, I’d be happy if Capcom offered me the chance to work on such a title.
Do you think we’ll ever see Jubei again in an Onimusha game in the future?
His storyline is kind of complete. He doesn’t really have anything to add to the story. But maybe one day you will see Jubei in some kind of title. From this point, though, I don’t know if we will see Jubei somewhere. But I would be happy to see Jubei somewhere in the future.
The game doesn’t really make this clear, but I was wondering if you could tell me who the greatest swordsman of all demons is?
Of course it will be Gogandantess. Are you asking for an impression? [laughs]
Will we see Gogandantess again? He’s a guy who should show up again.
Nobody knows since Jubei defeated him. It would be fun to see him somewhere in the future. Jubei defeated him, but maybe we will get lucky.
