A Destructoid opinion piece argues that modern sword-based action games, including the newly released Marvel's Wolverine and Onimusha: Way of the Sword, have abandoned the dynamic, freeform dismemberment mechanics pioneered over a decade ago, instead relying on scripted "kill animations" while regular combat treats blades as blunt weapons. The writer contends this represents a step backwards for genre realism and player satisfaction, despite the underlying technology having existed and proven popular for years.

The piece traces the origin of true dynamic cutting to Metal Gear Solid: Rising, unveiled at E3 2010 by Platinum Games, whose free-form slicing tech carried through, in a slightly reduced form, into the 2013 release Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. It also credits 2002's Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast with an earlier, cruder version of dynamic dismemberment, though that feature was locked out of the console release to satisfy ratings boards and only accessible via a PC unlock. The author says no major action game has meaningfully revisited this approach since Revengeance, despite studios pouring resources into graphical realism elsewhere, and calls on developers to bring back freeform blade physics.