Capcom's 2026 slate of releases is looking pretty ridiculous

It's been an interesting Summer of Gaming. While we had the chance to check out a number of Capcom's upcoming releases during Summer Game Fest - namely Onimusha: Way of the Sword and Pragmata - both came with some caveats. For Onimusha, it was a hands-off presentation as a Capcom employee guided a preview session; for Pragmata, we were only able to play once we reached a boss, after which we were told to hand off the controller.

During a pre-Gamescom preview event hosted by Capcom, we had the chance to go hands-on with both of those previous titles as well as Resident Evil Requiem. While much of our thoughts from Summer Game Fest remain the same, of course a second look has afforded us a chance to refine those thoughts. We invite you to read our previous impressions before continuing any further.

Starting off with Pragmata, this is where perhaps the change in hardware has done more to augment the experience than anything else. It was the same demo as Summer Game Fest, maybe even the same build entirely - yet while at SGF we played the demo on a base PlayStation 5, here we had the chance to play it on a PlayStation 5 Pro with enhanced visual fidelity. This manifests in much better image quality; while the game looked nice on a regular PlayStation 5, obvious TAA upscaling artifacts were distracting, especially when particle effects were flying across the screen. 

As always, we can't make any concrete assumptions about how the state of a game in development might represent the final product. It's perfectly possible that the game will look much better on a base PS5 come launch; what we can share, however, is that the image quality was a significant improvement on PlayStation 5 Pro. The other change to the demo was the boss; last time, we had to hand off our controller. This time was different.

The boss was about what I'd expected. A bipedal mech, it would occassionally send out missles telegraphed by AOE markers on the floor. Other times it would charge directly at you, requiring careful attention to its movements while also juggling the hacking minigame required to lower the bosses defenses. As an extra wrinkle, the boss model has a weakpoint on its back; a gas canister of some sort. When its defenses are down, you can make use of a scripted attack to deal a ton of damage as long as you can get behind the boss' model. Otherwise, shotguns will do the trick just as well.

Everything else about the demo was, of course, unchanged. Since this was my second time playing, and the first playthrough was still fresh in my memory, I was able to breeze through it to the boss in short order; I enjoyed it just as much as my first time through, but truthfully there really wasn't much else to report on. Hopefully next go around will be different.

Onimusha, then, is the star of the show. While we got to see a hands-off presentation of the same section of the game I got to play last month, there's a world of difference between watching someone else play a game and being able to play it for yourself. That being said, nearly everything that Josh mentioned from his preview holds up pretty accurately to the experience of playing the game. This build was on the same PlayStation5 Pro as the previous demo, and looked and ran great; I can't even begin to say what the exact performance metrics might be, or how the current state of the game might be on other hardware.

Prior to the preview session, I had requested code of Onimusha 1 and 2 from Capcom; I was a Nintendo kid, so the franchise was one of my blindspots for the longest time. While the overall vibes of the experience don't neatly match up with any specific previous entry in the series, the darker atmosphere probably lines up with Onimusha 1 compared to Onimusha 2. While Issen strikes remain - where you time your attack for right before an enemy's hits you to counter - parries feel like the name of the game here over anything else. Time a block at the perfect time to open an enemy up to counterattack, and sometimes to even spark flames on your sword that offer a buff.

Timing for this parry is rather lenient, and it's hard to say whether that's due to the nature of a demo designed for a showfloor. We know that Onimusha will feature some sort of RPG progression system, but even after going hands-on it's hard to say what the scope of the system might be; I assume that you'd access it through a save point, but I was unable to actually spot one during the duration of the demo. The boss fight with Ganryu was engaging, but my complaints with the overly lenient parry window remained; hopefully the final game will offer further options to let players tailor their experience. While it was a short demo, I greatly enjoyed what I played; it's shaping up to be a gorgeous game, and beyond the parries the game's battle system feels fast and frantic in the best ways, while firmly avoiding becoming something akin to Devil May Cry.

The final demo we tried was Resident Evil; and even if we did cover the franchise, I don't think there's much to say. The slice of the demo was the exact same as what we had seen from the hands-off presentation during SGF, and featured no combat. It's probably not fair, then, that I knew when to expect the jumpscares - and how to solve some of the puzzles. It feels like Resident Evil 7 and 8. Great games in their own right, sure, but I can't say it showed anything explicitly new. I'm interested in checking the game out on PC later with its expanded raytracing options - but yet again, the game is just a bit beyond the scope of the site. I'm excited to see more, and it was certainly a good time, but I really don't have much else to share besides that.

Any one of these games would be expected from Capcom, who tends to release at least one major release per year. 2026 having all 3 of these releases, as well as the upcoming Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection, changes things a bit. Even ignoring a likely Monster Hunter Wilds expansion, 2026 is shaping up to be one of the most packed years for Capcom releases in recent memory. It's still early days, and I'd love to get a longer hands-on with any one of these games - but I'm excited to see how things shake out come their releases next year. All 3 games will be available for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and PC.