Vanillaware is bringing Muramasa to PC in 2027. I, too, struggle to believe these words, but you're just going to have to trust me.
On the heels of a Switch and Switch 2 announcement in the Nintendo Direct June show (it's also coming to PS5), the Japanese studio surprised fans with a Steam page for Muramasa: Revenant Blades. This is the first Vanillaware game to ever come to PC, and it's a port of a game that first launched on the Wii in 2009 before being ported to the PlayStation Vita.
Vanillaware is notorious for skipping PC. I specifically asked the director of Unicorn Overlord, the studio's sterling strategy RPG, if a PC port was in the cards, and I was completely shut down.
It's maddening. Everything Vanillaware touches, from Odin Sphere to Dragon's Crown to 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, is an exemplar in a genre that has a huge audience on PC. Hell, games like Unicorn Overlord might even benefit from mouse controls, specifically. Yet, every time: crickets.
So, an updated, PC version of Muramasa: The Demon Blade is a big deal – not just because a great game will now be available on a new platform, but because it opens the door to further PC ports from Vanillaware. It's a pattern we've seen from the likes of Atlus and Capcom: dip your toe in the PC pond only to find your whole leg hungrily grabbed by a starved fan base who's been watching enviously from afar for years. Basically what I'm saying is, Unicorn Overlord on Steam, and only that, would fix me.
Anyway. Muramasa is a 2D action RPG about tearing through yokai and folklore-inspired monsters while struggling to tear your eyes away from Vanillaware's signature environments. Six protagonists fill out a hugely replayable game with sharp combat and a surprising amount of depth to progression and blacksmithing.
"Experience the side-scrolling action RPG epic from Vanillaware and Marvelous with stunning 4K visuals, all-new English voiceover and localization, new modes and more," the Nintendo Direct trailer reads.
