Okami director says the dev team was “weak”, sales were “huge failure”

In a recent video, Okami director Hideki Kamiya and environment artist Ikumi Nakamura. The two spoke about various topics, including the team behind the game and the initial poor sales.

According to Kamiya, Okami was intended to feature “a dream team” of developers. However, he actually believes that the group was ultimately “weak”, before adding how there “was a very drastic contrast within.”

Kamiya stated:

“Okami was supposed to be Clover Studio’s signature title. That’s why we wanted to create a dream team. It was supposed to be a dream team with all the best staff in each section. That was the plan, but in the end, not everyone, but as the whole team, I frankly think it was weak.

It wasn’t a dream team. There was a very drastic contrast within. There were certainly people without whom there would be no Okami. Those members shone brightly. Some of them really shone stronger even more than ones I had worked with previously. I’m not saying this as flattery, but you [Nakamura] certainly did. Naoki Katakai and Keniichirou Yoshimura, Sawaki Takeyasu, Mari Shimazaki, Hiroshi Yamaguchi. I’m really grateful, but when viewed as a whole, it wasn’t a dream team.”

As for Okami’s debut, Kamiya says the game was a “huge failure” when it came to initial sales. Regarding that, he mentioned:

“Even Okami, did it make 150,000 units? The initial shipment was 90,000. It was a huge failure. If it had been successful, Clover would have probably continued.”

Okami has gone out to become a cult classic of sorts. One thing that has helped is Capcom continuing to re-release the title – right now you can pick it up on Switch.

You can read more about Okami here, including how Kamiya previously mentioned wanting to make a sequel. You can also watch the full video between Kamiya and Nakamura here.