'Onimusha: Way of the Sword' Reactions and Capcom's Career Year | Button Mash

The Ringer-Verse

The Ringer's Button Mash podcast explores Capcom's remarkable success in 2026, highlighted by the release of 'Onimusha: Way of the Sword,' while also

Key takeaways

• Capcom's sustained success stems from a combination of creative risk-taking, strong development practices, and strategic reinvestment in beloved franchises.
• Despite critical acclaim for 'Star Wars Zero Company,' its development was marred by severe funding issues leading to widespread furloughs at Bit Reactor.

Main topics

• Capcom's career year and resurgence in game development
• Reactions to 'Onimusha: Way of the Sword' and its place in Capcom's legacy

Notable quotes

"You can make the call. You've got far more important people in your phone than I do." – Ben Lindberg on Facebook friend requests

Conclusion

The episode underscores Capcom's exceptional run in gaming while highlighting ongoing industry challenges—especially around

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:13) And welcome into The Ringerverse, your Nexus feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, Senior Editor at The Ringer and your host here at Button Mesh, where you can't even tell that all of our faces are uncannily AI upscaled because we aren't on video yet. There are three other faces and voices with me today. Two will be familiar. One belongs to Senior Audio Producer and Midnight Boy, Steve Allman, who hardly needs Jensen Huang's help to look his best. Hi, Steve. Hey, I'm just done sucking down demon souls. And now I just need AI upscaling to make me look even prettier. Perfect. Speaking of looking your best, I'm blowing up your spot for a second. I recently friended you on Facebook because we're old. Oh my God. Do that from time to time. Speaker 3 (1:00) You Speaker 2 (1:00) did? I Speaker 3 (1:00) haven't been on that in a minute. I think you accepted. So you must have been aware. Okay. Yeah. Speaker 2 (1:05) You're probably just auto-accept, you know, you probably have so many people Speaker 3 (1:09) wanting to be your friend. Speaker 2 (1:11) Yeah. Well, one thing you used it for recently was sharing a photo shoot you conducted, which I am now privy to. Now, was this part of the recent Vanity Fair Midnight Boys feature or was this a solo project just for fun? Speaker 3 (1:26) No, this was part of some Spotify press photos that was both offered to podcasters and also offered to anybody that wished to take them. It was like a fun day at the office where pretty much anybody could get professional headshots taken. Really? Where was my photo shoot? I Speaker 2 (1:45) guess they Speaker 3 (1:46) don't Speaker 2 (1:46) do Speaker 3 (1:46) Spotify Speaker 2 (1:47) home mix visits. They don't do the home office photo shoot. Listen, you can make the call. You've got far more important Speaker 3 (1:54) people in your phone than I do, Ben. You can absolutely make that happen. Speaker 2 (1:58) I thought this was all about Vanity Fair, but no, this was a personal Steve joint, though I did enjoy that Vanity Fair shouted out your unapologetically black sensibility, which we all appreciate. It Speaker 3 (2:10) really Speaker 2 (2:10) is by popular demand. So in this photo shoot, there's some great shots. There are a couple of you peeking coquettishly above. an upturned collar, just peering out. See, this is where we need the video components to the podcast so that people who are not Facebook friends with Steve could appreciate this. But there's one particular image that I've been thinking about. It looks like you started to do a split and then halfway down your back locked up and then you sort of grimaced through it. And so you're just sort of bent over with your hands behind your back and your legs splayed apart. What's the story here? Was that just you Speaker 3 (2:52) freestyling? Speaker 2 (2:53) Well, Speaker 3 (2:54) this was actually me recreating a very famous Willem Dafoe photo shoot where he too did that exact same pose. And that has since become a rather iconic meme. And I was just, you know, like when the photographer says have fun, I'm like, this is the only thing that I could think to do. That's just your go-to? Willem Dafoe Speaker 2 (3:10) poses. Yeah. Right. That's what you do just in your candids when someone says cheese and you just immediately launch into the Willem Dafoe. Okay. Yeah. I'm glad you have that in Speaker 3 (3:19) your bag. I'm not going to hop into the term coquettishly. whenever that comes Speaker 2 (3:25) across, because that's now the word of the day. The second voice and face belong to Ringer deputy art lead Matt James, who, as far as I know, has not been featured in a photo shoot lately and who definitely does not use NVIDIA's DLSS5 for his excellent lead images on theringer.com. Howdy, Matt. Howdy, Ben. Yeah, Speaker 4 (3:44) if you want to do like a personal photo shoot yourself in your home, maybe I can Photoshop them to get Speaker 2 (3:49) that Vanity Fair look for you. Yes, that's right. We don't need the AI upscaling. We have Matt airbrush it with the human element, right? It's the Photoshop personal touch that he delivers every day. Do you have a go-to photo pose if someone snaps a pic of you? Oh, yes. Also Willem Dafoe. Yeah, of course. Yeah, that's right. Well, one of your excellent lead images adorns an article published on Thursday by our third guest, making his button mash debut all the way from his home in Glasgow. It's Lewis Gordon. Welcome, Lewis. Speaker 1 (4:26) Hello, hello. Hello. Nice Speaker 2 (4:27) to be here. So happy to have you. Lewis freelances for many a site, but we're always happy to have his deep dive features. Grace, TheRinger.com, what a great website. And it was a great website on Thursday, in part thanks to Lewis's excellent reporting and piece on Capcom. It's called How Capcom Cracked the Code of Game Development. You talk to a ton of people at Capcom, outside observers and analysts about how exactly Capcom keeps killing it, because we are going to be talking today about your piece and also about the latest release, which has... capped off the year of Capcom, which we tease coming into 2026 that we were going to have New Resident Evil. We were going to have Pragmata. We were going to have Onimusha, Way of the Sword. And now that final game has arrived. It's as good as advertised. And this might just be a career year for Capcom. So I'm very much looking forward to talking to you about how that's happening. Why Capcom can't miss. Because... A lot of other companies are having issues as Capcom is just on this incredible streak of success. And we will get to Capcom shortly. We will talk a bit about Orbitals. We'll get into some other games. But our patch notes news section leading off this episode, I guess we could begin with a company that did produce an excellent game, but did encounter some struggles along the way. So behind the scenes. We were hoping and planning to bring you an interview about Star Wars Zero Company today and the making of that great game. We still hope that will happen sometime soon, but it is not happening today. Thanks in part to the fallout from a report by former Button Mesh guest, Steven Totillo at Game File earlier this week about Bit Reactor, the startup studio that developed the excellent Star Wars Zero Company. Turns out that... The majority of the people at Bit Reactor were furloughed shortly before this game came out, which changed the tenor of the conversations and victory laps surrounding this game. As many as 80 % potentially of the personnel at that studio have not been working, have not been paid lately because the studio seemingly, essentially ran out of funding. And there is also a lawsuit that Stephen unearthed that pertains to a dispute about ownership of the studio between a couple of the co-founders. Perhaps that hasn't helped this situation, but this doesn't seem to stem from that. It doesn't even seem to be anything particularly nefarious. It is just an all too common story in game development these days that even successful games and studios, well... behind the scenes, they are sometimes struggling to make ends meet. So were you surprised by this story, Lewis, dropping in the midst of your reporting about how Capcom can do no wrong? Speaker 1 (7:28) I'd like to say I was surprised, but I mean, you just, I don't think you can be surprised at anything that happens with studios, particularly, I Speaker 2 (7:37) guess, particularly in the West, in North America. in Europe anymore. Yeah. And it doesn't seem to be anything related to electronic arts or Disney. It's just a tale that we hear all too often these days. Game development takes a long time. It costs a lot of money. And sometimes there's just not enough runway. And so we've seen a number of cases where a game. bombed or didn't hit the way that it was expected to. And shortly after that, we heard about layoffs. I think that's why this seems a little bit different. This is not High Guard. This is not 2XKO, something like that, where the planned post-release roadmap got scuttled because the game had a light launch and thus wasn't generating revenue. And thus, people were laid off and studios were downsized. In this case, the game seems to be going gangbusters. But of course. that doesn't help you before the game actually comes out, right, Matt? So it's lamentable that this happened, obviously. And I guess it's also an even greater tribute to the finished product because the game is great. It is. And Speaker 4 (8:44) I do think, though, that, you know, knowing this now, you know, the three of us have talked about Zero Company and how, you know, our only critique of it really was... was that there's a bit of jank, a bit of unpolishedness, a few, you know, stutters here and there, some weird camera stuff. All of these things that, you know, we noticed but didn't super impact our time with it. But you would assume that those are the kind of things that, you know, a normal studio functioning at full capacity would spend the last few weeks leading up to the game ironing out. So perhaps, you know... That is what we're seeing here is that by the time they got to that final stage of smoothing things out, perhaps, you know, there weren't that many people around to actually do that work. Right. Speaker 2 (9:32) Yeah. Reportedly, there is still a skeleton crew that's a different Star Wars property, but also an expression that is still at the reactor, maintaining the game, patching the game. And hopefully the success of the game will enable people to come back to work and get paid. or in the worst case scenario, I guess, get good work elsewhere on the strength of having worked on this game. But sales have been strong. This is not just a critical favorite. This is not Marvel's Midnight Suns, where the sales didn't really mirror the critical reception. This game has been a hit and a well-deserved one. So I hope that that does lead to a second act for Bit Reactor and for a lot of the people who had a hand in making this great game. coming back to work. And also, Steve, I suppose it would be a shame if this story distracted from how good the game is, right? I mean, it's a minor miracle that any game gets made. But you're right, Matt, it's even more of a wonder that this thing shipped in any playable form if money was that tight. So it's particularly impressive. But yeah, Steve, I hope that we can all, if anything, just... pull for this game in studio even more, knowing the circumstances Speaker 3 (10:46) under which this game was produced. Of course, I would have nothing but good things to say about this game, and as well as to root for anyone and everyone that worked on it, both furloughed and not. It seems like we can't really escape the narrative of the terrible state that this industry is in, even with some of our critical... darlings that have been emerging from the past few years. Like this, this struck me like a sort of like high fry rush scenario while that game studio shuttered and the property was left and that game was more or less finished. This seems to be something that like, I don't know the certain like financials or particulars of that furlough to what needs to be happening for those people to get their jobs back. But to know that this thing has just kind of been released out into the ether in the very good, but like, you know, still to be improved slightly state that it's in and know that that could just be it if this weren't a critical masterpiece or like something that was as well regarded as it was like to know that this is an industry that is kind of unwavering in its use of you know funds and and success metrics and all those things to just simply cut a project out from under itself when this is a living, breathing document for a couple of weeks and months after its release. So it's Speaker 2 (12:05) a Speaker 3 (12:05) shame, but I'm without a doubt certain that if this continues its level of success now, then I have no doubt that this is going to be, this won't be the last that we see from those workers in studio. Speaker 2 (12:16) Yeah, it is a lamentable reflection of the state of the industry, except of course for Capcom, where everything is going great. But I hope to bring you more on Zero Company soon, because again, I think that the game deserves to be. celebrated and praised and discussed and that this should not distract from the greatness of the game. If anything, it Speaker 4 (12:37) should Speaker 2 (12:37) only make that more impressive. Another thing we planned to talk about at some length today, but probably will not be, is Sony's State of Play presentations on Thursday, which, you know, you expect a certain number of announcements and headlines from a State of Play. This didn't particularly deliver on that score. And no, Sony did not announce that they're calling backseas on doing away with discs. Just kidding, guys. We weren't serious about that. No, they're still sticking to their guns on that one. But also, there wasn't much in the way of new games. We got a lot of looks at already confirmed games and games that are coming up soon, some of which we will be discussing on this podcast. And some release dates and reminders about things that are coming early next year. But I think it's sort of similar to what we were saying about Gamescom and opening Night Live. It's just GTA is coming, you know? And so everything has cleared out of the fall and winter calendar. And so there's not all that much to hype except for, yeah, continue to look forward to Final Fantasy, various Final Fantasies. So, you know. Games looked good. Games were shown proof of life, but not much new to discuss. Speaker 4 (13:52) Tons of Speaker 2 (13:52) DLC. Lots of DLC. Speaker 4 (13:55) For pretty much everything you've touched in the past two years seems to be getting some form of additional content. Or the past 11 Speaker 2 (14:01) years in The Witcher's case, though that was not shown here. But yeah. And Capcom, of course, got in on things too. Getting some DLC for Monster Hunter Wilds as if Capcom has not been prolific enough. But yeah, not a ton. came out of this. So we probably will not dwell on it. I will note, Steve, you hipped me to some Sony related news. So there has been good news on the console sales front, not exclusively PlayStation sales. Speaker 4 (14:28) In Speaker 2 (14:29) fact, across the Speaker 4 (14:29) board. Speaker 2 (14:30) Hey, I have to take my little victory lap here. So if at least you're being right, you will take my notes. Absolutely. Yes. So last week, after console sales really bottomed out in July and the sales figures were dire, there was some good news recently as just about every system was up significantly in terms of units sold. PlayStation and Xbox by about a third week over week. Even the Switch 2 was up, though that was more about, I think, getting purchases under the wire before the price hike. But there was PlayStation and Xbox. sales bump as well, which seems to be largely related to GTA 6 and the extended look that renewed the hype, fanned the flames for that game. And that was one of my big questions about GTA. Will this be a system seller? And I think it's tough given limited supply of components and exorbitant prices for components. But at least some people did say, oh, I better get in on that because GTA is coming. And specifically for PS5. Pro. It turns out I thought I was late. I was behind the curve. I should have bought a PS5 Pro prior to the price hike. Turns out I'm actually a trendsetter. Was this the GTA bump or was it the button mash bump? I don't know. But suddenly the PS5 Pro is sold out seemingly everywhere. And in fact, there is a hot resale market going on here where if I were not actually using my PS5 Pro, I could probably hawk that thing. for a profit. So thank you, Steve, for alerting me to this so that I could feel a little bit better about my shameful gluttonous purchase of a PS5 Pro. Speaker 4 (16:12) I got to congratulate you on spending $200 more than the launch price, Ben. That was a really savvy move. Speaker 3 (16:19) Only to, you know, forego spending potentially $300 to $400 on the launch price when those eventually come back and stop. Look at it as an investment. Speaker 2 (16:27) Look at it as savings. Don't cry over. spilt hundreds of dollars, look at it as the hundreds of dollars I spent by looking forward to future price hikes. That's the way I'm looking at these things. Speaker 3 (16:42) Possibly flattering to me. I'm curious what Lewis thinks about like if they have, if you have any like consoles that are now an appreciating assets in your house. Speaker 1 (16:53) Is the base PS5 appreciated? I don't know. It Speaker 2 (16:57) might be. Maybe a little. I appreciate it. And yes, this is really our retirement plan. You know, there's not much of a safety net when it comes to games Speaker 1 (17:07) media. Speaker 2 (17:07) There's Speaker 1 (17:07) not Speaker 2 (17:07) much else Speaker 1 (17:08) going on. Yeah. Speaker 2 (17:09) Yeah. It's a shrinking industry. So we're all just clinging to our increasingly expensive consoles, which we could potentially resell someday. Speaker 3 (17:17) Money has never been more fake, Ben. Speaker 4 (17:20) My PlayStation is going to be worth a lot. It has this little slot that you can put this weird like circle thing in. I don't know what it does. Wow. Speaker 2 (17:27) Some sort of primitive. artifact or relic. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, I plan to hand it down to my descendants because it may be generations until there's a PS6 at this point. So hopefully the PS5 Pro will have some shelf life. Now, one solution possibly to a lack of new hardware is trying to make the old hardware perform better or trying to make old games look great. That is ostensibly at least the goal behind DLSS 5. This is what I was alluding to in the intro. This is, of course, the latest iteration of NVIDIA's upscaling, deep learning, super sampling series, which aims to prettify games after the fact. And this is a landmark release, DLSS 5. And obviously, this has been in the works for a while. We have discussed it in passing previously. It's out now. It has escaped containment. There were people who were data mining it, but now it's really out there. And the response has been divisive, polarizing. It is available as of Thursday in NBA 2K27. If, of course, you have the proper NVIDIA hardware, which will cost you an arm and a leg or a kidney, the GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs on GeForce Now. You can, if you dare, get access to DLSS 5. However, there are some downsides. One, it turns out that it will kill your frame rates. What are we Speaker 3 (19:07) doing here? Why? Speaker 2 (19:10) There are always trade-offs. What's Speaker 3 (19:11) the Speaker 2 (19:11) point? See if there's no such thing as a free lunch or a free... graphics upgrade. Speaker 3 (19:17) I'm sorry. I hate to cut you off, but like, even if this shit were to look good, like, does it at least perform well? No. Also no. Speaker 2 (19:25) God. And that's the other consideration. Does it look good? So we end up with uncanny valley yassifying of existing characters here because there are certain games, it appears to be maybe the more photorealistic the character was in the first place. the better the results. I put better in quotes because, again, this is all sort of subjective. However, if there's any actual stylized approach to rendering a character, you know, artistic intent, right, then that all kind of comes out in the wash as this generic AI neural model filter is applied just in a very heavy handed way. This neural rendering. based AI that supposedly is enhancing the lighting and the resolution and the surfaces and upscaling everything to 4K and all the rest of it. NVIDIA says that they are attempting to retain the developers intended style. But in practice, in many cases, there appears to be a great flattening here and also a very off-putting effect. Lewis, what do you make of what you've seen of this so far and also the online backlash? Speaker 1 (20:39) It's the detail. on the faces. It's all kind of like, it's so over exaggerated. It's kind of like the shadows, the lines, the wrinkles, the pores. And my sort of takeaway was that all of these characters look cooked in the sense that they've just been on like a sunbed for too long. It's like a deep fried Speaker 3 (21:02) meme where like everything's just like a little sunken in. Speaker 1 (21:05) They look like they've got some kind of like terminal. dermalogical condition or something. They just like, they look like they need to sort of like, I don't know, just go and sit in a dark room for months at this point. Yeah. I don't know. It's not for me. I could give them some tips on sun Speaker 2 (21:23) avoidance and sitting in dark rooms and judging by the complexions of most people on this call, we could all identify with that. But yeah, I mean, they might be cooked or overcooked. We might be cooked. as a society, as an industry at this point. I don't deny that there may eventually be some utility to this or some applications. I guess it's of a piece with the larger AI conversation where there are the moral considerations, there are the ecological considerations, then there are the artistic considerations. are there certain applications of some AI-based technologies that could actually make games better and make people's jobs easier, et cetera? Yeah, there may be. Then there's also the extremely problematic, worrisome stuff. And that is what has dominated to this point. Of course, that is what social media algorithms cater to. And there may be plenty of people who are totally wowed by this and not just kind of gullible AI bros, but people who... like graphical fidelity, if this could be applied with the input of the developers in sort of a finely tuned, specific to a certain game way, I could imagine it having good results. But if it's just kind of a blanket, we're going to apply this across the board with no nuance, and we're going to make everything look sort of the same. and one of the strengths of video games is that they all do look very different and you can see the stamp of the creators in those games, then that would be a real shame in addition to