Cancelled plans for Way of the Samurai 5 lead to Katana Kami: A Way of the Samurai Story

As they say, when one door closes, another opens. That's exactly what happened for the developers of Katana Kami: A Way of the Samurai Story. In an interview with 4Gamer, Acquire President Takuma Endo and Katanakami Director Tetsuji Saito revealed that cancelled plans for Way of the Samurai 5 paved the way for this new spin-off.

Saito: “It was around 2015, the release of the Steam version of Way of the Samurai 4 on PC. The PC version, based on the console version and aimed towards overseas audience, only received a metascore of 72, and personally even I felt that the time for the series had come to an end. I thought that it was time for me to leave the Way of the Samurai series, but Endo told me, “I’ll go meet with [Spike Chunsoft President Mitsutoshi] Sakurai, so please think of a sequel for the Way of the Samurai series.”

Sadly, our efforts for a Way of the Samurai 5 were crushed, but later on the topic of ‘a download-only title that could be played casually’ came up.”