The topic of sequels in the video game space is more difficult to discuss than one might think. When you look at games that have gotten sequels and those that haven’t, there are various reasons why one got the greenlight while the other didn’t. Sometimes, it’s about profit and whether the developer/publisher thinks that more can be gotten from a follow-up. Other times, it’s about timing and where the sequel falls in line with the team’s release schedule. Then, there’s the case of Okami 2, where Capcom apparently wanted to do a sequel for a long time, but the “right pieces” were never in place.
For those who don’t recall, the Capcom title came out in 2006 and was instantly beloved for its unique visuals, story, gameplay mechanics, and so on. The problem was that the game didn’t sell well initially. The keyword there is “initially.” Capcom refused to give up on the game and thus ported it all over the place, including the Wii. Then, when consoles got HD capabilities, they did a remastered version of sorts. That helped it last LONG after its initial release and get over 4 million copies sold.
Capcom producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi had a chat with IGN about the game and noted how its success was a bit atypical:
“I know specifically that people are still enjoying this game, just from the numbers. Normally when we look at games, the sales sort of slow down and they decrease steadily. Sometimes they jump up and down, but normally they go down. But for Ōkami, we see that it’s been a steady stream of people always enjoying the game. So in that way Ōkami is a very, very unique IP.”
So, again, why did it take so long to get a sequel? That’s because certain teams and team members within Capcom weren’t really available to make Okami 2. Easily the biggest piece was Hideki Kamiya, the game’s original director, who departed the publisher not long after the game’s release to go and make a new studio: PlatinumGames. However, he left that place to make Clovers, the dev team behind the sequel, alongside Machine Head Games, which had key members who made the original.
Speaking of Kamiya, he was also in that IGN interview and thanked the fans for “cheering him on” to make this sequel:
“And so, with everyone cheering on and our desire to create, it was that that led us to the actualization of this project. So without everyone’s voices out there, without everyone cheering us on, we wouldn’t have moved forward with this. So thank you so much.”
