It’s 2001. You’re sitting in front of a beige box, the hum of a cathode-ray tube monitor filling the room. You’ve just loaded up a game that looks like Ghost in the Shell but plays like a high-speed collision between a John Woo flick and a Virtua Fighter cabinet. That game was Oni on PC, and honestly, we haven’t seen anything quite like it since. Developed by Bungie West—a satellite studio of the team that would eventually give us Halo—Oni was an anomaly. It was a third-person action game that tried to do the impossible: make shooting and punching feel equally viable, fluid, and cool.
Most games back then picked a side. You were either a shooter or a brawler. If you tried to do both, one side usually felt like garbage. Oni didn't care about those rules. It gave you Konoko, an elite operative in a dystopian future, and told you to figure it out.
The Bungie DNA You Forgot About
When people talk about Bungie, they talk about Master Chief. They talk about Destiny. They rarely talk about the messy, ambitious, and deeply stylish world of Oni. But you can see the fingerprints everywhere. Look at the way Konoko moves. There’s a weight to it, a specific kind of momentum that Bungie mastered.
The game was actually inspired heavily by Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 masterpiece Ghost in the Shell. Konoko isn't just a generic protagonist; she’s a cyborg-adjacent super-soldier grappling with her own origins while working for the TCTF (Technological Crimes Task Force). It’s peak cyberpunk. Rain-slicked concrete. Brutalist architecture. Purple hair.
The Combat System Was Actually Genius
The "Blended Combat" system was the big selling point. It wasn't just marketing fluff. In Oni on PC, you could be mid-sprint, fire off a few rounds from a Mercury Bow, and then immediately transition into a slide-tackle that transitions into a throw. It felt seamless. Most modern games still struggle to get this right.
Usually, in a game with guns, the melee is a "panic button" bash. In Oni, melee was the main event. You had combos. You had throws that changed based on your orientation to the enemy. You could literally disarm an opponent, catch their gun in mid-air, and start blasting. It was frantic. It was hard.
But it wasn't perfect.
✨ Don't miss: Watching a Minecraft Movie Stream: What to Actually Expect
The AI was notoriously aggressive. They didn't just stand there waiting for their turn to get punched. They would flank you. They would run for dropped weapons. If you weren't careful, a low-level grunt could end your run because you got cocky with your combos. This difficulty is part of why the game has such a dedicated cult following. It didn't hold your hand.
Technical Weirdness and the PC Advantage
Running Oni on PC back in the day was a bit of a gamble depending on your hardware. It used a custom engine that allowed for these massive, sprawling levels. We're talking huge interior spaces with no loading screens—something that was pretty mind-blowing for the era.
The PC version was always the definitive way to play. While the PlayStation 2 port struggled with framerate drops and lacked the precision of a mouse and keyboard, the PC version thrived. You needed that mouse precision for the long-range sniper shots, but the keyboard was where the real magic happened for the fighting moves.
The Missing Multiplayer Heartbreak
Here is the thing that still stings for long-time fans: Oni was supposed to have multiplayer.
The original trailers and previews promised LAN play. You were supposed to be able to have these insane martial arts brawls with your friends. But as development dragged on and Microsoft acquired Bungie, the scope had to be cut. The multiplayer was scrapped. It remains one of the great "what ifs" of early 2000s gaming. Can you imagine a 16-player arena fight with Oni's physics? It would have been chaos. Total, beautiful chaos.
👉 See also: Why Foxy From Five Nights at Freddy’s Still Scares Us After a Decade
Why the Modding Community is Carrying the Torch
If you try to install Oni today on a modern Windows 11 machine, you’re gonna have a bad time. The retail disc (if you can even find one) isn't exactly "plug and play" with modern GPUs. This is where the Anniversary Edition comes in.
It’s not an official remake. It’s a massive, community-driven project that basically fixes everything. It adds widescreen support, fixes the memory leaks, and even introduces new characters and moves that were buried in the game's code.
- The Daodan DLL: This is the backbone of modern Oni play. It’s a replacement library that allows the game to talk to modern hardware.
- The Oni Splitter: A tool used by modders to break down the game's data files, allowing for custom levels and textures.
- HD Texture Packs: Because let’s be real, those 2001 textures look a bit crunchy on a 4K monitor.
The fact that people are still writing code for a game that came out when the Motorola Razr was the height of fashion tells you everything you need to know. There is a "feel" to Oni that hasn't been replicated.
Debunking the "Bungie Hates Oni" Myth
There’s this common narrative that Bungie hates Oni or wants to forget it exists. That’s not really true. It’s more of a legal nightmare. When Microsoft bought Bungie, they didn't get the rights to Oni. Those stayed with Take-Two Interactive (Rockstar's parent company).
So, Bungie couldn't make a sequel even if they wanted to. This split is why we never saw an Oni 2, despite the first game ending on a massive cliffhanger that changed the entire world state. We were left in a world where the atmosphere was failing, and the only way to survive was through Daodan evolution. And then... nothing. Silence for twenty-five years.
How to Actually Play Oni on PC Today
You can't just go to Steam or Epic and buy it. It’s currently "abandonware" in the eyes of most fans, though the legal rights are still technically owned. To get it running, you basically have to follow a specific ritual:
- Locate a copy: Whether it's your old physical disc or a digital archive.
- Install the Anniversary Edition (AE): Do not skip this. The AE installer is the only thing that makes the game playable on modern systems.
- Configure the controls: Oni uses a weird default layout. Take ten minutes to map it to something that feels natural to you.
- Turn off V-Sync in the game menu: Use your graphics card's control panel instead to avoid input lag.
The Verdict on Konoko’s Legacy
Oni is a flawed masterpiece. The levels are often empty and repetitive. The story is told through some pretty dated 2D cutscenes and terminal entries. The voice acting is... well, it’s very 2001. "Amateurs!"
But the combat? The combat is still 10/10.
There is a specific rhythm to the fights. You dodge a punch, sweep the leg, pull out a submachine gun to stagger the guy coming up behind you, and then finish the first guy with a neck-breaker. When it clicks, you feel like an absolute god.
It’s a reminder of an era when developers were taking massive swings. Bungie West tried to blend two entirely different genres into a seamless whole. They didn't quite hit a home run, but they hit a triple that people are still cheering about decades later.
Actionable Steps for New Players
If you’re looking to dive into Oni on PC for the first time, don't go in expecting John Wick. Expect a tactical brawler where positioning matters more than your trigger finger. Start on "Easy" or "Normal." Seriously. The "Hard" setting will make you want to throw your monitor out the window within the first three levels.
Focus on learning the "Devil Spin Kick" and the "Willow Kick" early. These are your bread-and-butter moves for crowd control. Also, learn to love the disarm mechanic. Running into a room full of guys with rifles is suicide unless you know how to take those rifles away from them and use them as clubs.
Join the Oni Central forums or their Discord. It is one of the most welcoming, "old-school" gaming communities left on the internet. They have guides for every technical glitch you might encounter and can help you get the game running in ultra-widescreen with revamped AI.
The world of Oni is bleak, industrial, and violent. But man, is it fun to kick people in it.
👉 See also: How the Great Blizzard Gems Changed Diablo Forever
Essential Next Steps:
- Check your local thrift stores or eBay for a physical PC copy to stay on the right side of the "collector" line.
- Download the Anniversary Edition framework from the Oni Central community site.
- Watch the original 1999 E3 trailer to see the "lost" features and get a feel for the original hype.
- Map your mouse buttons to "Punch" and "Kick" to get that true hybrid fighter feel.