Kunitsu-Gami devs break down the secret to Capcom’s new success

digitaltrends.com:

The video game industry is in a period of contraction. Companies like Bungie are canceling games and laying off developers so they can home in and focus on one or two big titles. Why invest in smaller, riskier projects when making larger games in well-known franchises will yield greater returns? Capcom, on the other hand, is committed to doing both.

“I believe that the experience with a series or remake is important, but the experience of a new IP is also important,” Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess Director Shuichi Kawata told me in an email interview following the release of one of Capcom’s more experimental new games yet.

That’s a rare sentiment to hear from someone at a major video game developer and publisher behind AAA franchises. For the past several years, Capcom has continued to release games in popular series like Street Fighter, Resident Evil, and Dragon’s Dogma. Monster Hunter Wilds is poised to be one of the biggest games of 2025. Over that same period, it has also taken the time to create more experimental games like underwater Metroidvania Shinsekai: Into the Depths, multiplayer dinosaur shooter Exoprimal, and action-tower defense hybrid Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess.

Those games are just as entertaining as the latest Resident Evil or Street Fighter, giving Capcom one of the most actively diverse and inspiring game lineups outside of Nintendo. I interviewed Kawata, and producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi. Discussing their work on a new IP exposed a key reason why Capcom is currently on a hot streak.

Making a new IP at Capcom

The idea for Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess came to Kawata around the time Apple Arcade exclusive Shinsekai: Into the Depths was completed. Kawata was a big fan of tower defense games and the strategy they require, and he wondered what it’d be like if a player had to take part in that action. The result is a game where players command units to defend a maiden from creatures called Seethe as she works to purify a corrupted