A New Yakuza Game Is Already In Development
During a recent livestream celebrating Yakuza’s 15th anniversary, the Chief Creative Officer of SEGA revealed that the next game in the Yakuza series is already in development.
We’ve just been treated to Yakuza: Like A Dragon, although the PS5 version is a still a little way off, so this announcement regarding another game came pretty left-field.
The livestream mainly consisted of looking back on the history of the series, and there were other announcements regarding exciting merchandise and other franchises. Towards the end of the celebration, Toshihiro Nagoshi confirmed that they were working on the next instalment.
Kazuma Kiryu's voice actor, Takaya Kuroda, was also in attendance and said that he wasn’t sure if Kiryu would return as the Yakuza series protagonist, or appear in the games again in the future, reports Game Rant.
If you’ve played the new game, you’ll know that it introduced a new protagonist named Ichiban Kasuga, who has been imprisoned for 18 years after being betrayed, and is now searching for answers. For the first time in the series, the game moves away from Tokyo (and the game's fictional recreation of Kabukichō called Kamurocho), and is now set in the Yokohama district of Isezaki Ijincho, which is based on Yokohama's real-life Isezakichō district.
In terms of any further details, there wasn’t much else said. We don’t yet know if it will be a sequel to Like A Dragon or something completely different.
The stream also confirmed that Like A Dragon will be released on PS5 in both Japan and the West on March 2, 2021.
The RPG, the eighth main release in the Yakuza series, was released in Japan and Asia for PlayStation 4 earlier this year, on January 16. The worldwide release came much later, in November.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon is available now for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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