An Ōkami sequel has just been revealed at The Game Awards.
Geoff Keighley took everyone by surprise by setting up the announcement via musical interlude. As the camera panned to the orchestra playing the theme, we were slowly transitioned to seeing Amaterasu run across a field in the screen in the background. The screen finally revealed an Ōkami sequel to be directed by Hideki Kamiya.
Capcom shared this explanation of the title’s development on its newly launched website:
“The Okami sequel project is underway!!
Okami is a game critically acclaimed for its unique world, heartwarming story, and exciting adventures. Now, a new adventure in the same vein as Okami has been set in motion.
Hideki Kamiya, director of the original Okami, will be the director of this project, which is being co-developed between studios that include various staff members of the original Okami: M-TWO Inc., Machine Head Works Inc., and CLOVERS Inc. – which Hideki Kamiya is a member of.”
Ōkami was originally released for the PlayStation 2 in 2006. Clover Studio, a subsidiary under Capcom, incorporated several groundbreaking and unique ideas to make a title that gamers still remember today, even if that reputation isn’t quite matched with blockbuster sales.
The production team behind the game is now considered a who’s who of the industry at the time. Directed by Hideki Kamiya, produced by Atsushi Inaba, and designed by Hiroshi Shibata. Kamiya and Inaba would go on to found PlatinumGames alongside Shinji Mikami and Tatsuya Minami, and Shibata would join them in the new studio.
As we learned recently, also part of that studio was an up-and-coming artist named Ikumi Nakamura. Nakamura today heads her own studio Unseen and producing their first original title, Kemuri. Nakamura interviewed Kamiya in two videos on Unseen’s YouTube channel, where they discussed how the creative triumphs fans saw in Ōkami don’t quite match the troubles they encountered during its development.
In fact, Kamiya opined that the developer team was weak, and were not quite up to the task that they were put up to. But Kamiya also revealed then that he was frustrated that Capcom had not been making sequels for their old Clover games, which included Viewtiful Joe as well as Ōkami.
And of course, we would be remiss not to bring up that Hideki Kamiya left PlatinumGames, the studio he helped launch, September of last year. For all the speculation of what Kamiya wanted to do next, it now seems likely that this was what he was planning to do all along.
And it all certainly makes sense in hindsight. Kamiya was reducing his involvement in the Bayonetta franchise, and likely had minimum input on their 2019 hit, Astral Chain. We also reported on PlatinumGames successfully acquiring the full rights to The Wonderful 101 shortly after Kamiya’s no-compete clause would have ended.
For his part, Kamiya shared a letter to the public about his return to Capcom and Ōkami, which you can read here. We’ll see how this new Ōkami will work out, but for now, we do congratulate Hideki Kamiya and the staff for getting to return to this franchise.
