Like a Dragon Gaiden Will Be Shorter Than Usual

Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name is one of several upcoming projects in the Like a Dragon franchise, formerly known as Yakuza. Today, Twinfinite writer Giuseppe Nelva published their interview with the Ryu Ga Gotoku director and executive producer, Masayoshi Yokoyama. Yokoyama had a lot to say about Like a Dragon Gaiden and Like a Dragon: Ishin!, including how long the former will likely be.

In previous news, we’ve heard that this title would be shorter, but according to Yokoyama, Like a Dragon Gaiden will be the length of “around 4-6 chapters of a mainline title” in the series. “This is because we are depicting a pre-existing protagonist independently, and won’t need to include long explanations in the dialogue.”

In a way, it sounds like this game will just take players to the good stuff immediately. Yokoyama added that there would be plenty of “side stories and minigames” that boost the size of the game to about half the length of a mainline title.

Like the rest of the Like a Dragon games, it will not be coming to the Nintendo Switch though it seems to be everywhere else. When asked why these games are not available on Switch in the interview, Yokoyama said this decision is based on both a hardware issue and a market issue.

“Hardware power is one of the reasons, but I think it’s more so that the impression of the market for Switch and the market for the Ryu ga Gotoku series differs in Japan. If the spec issue is solved and the impression of the Switch market in Japan changes significantly, we would definitely take it into consideration.”

Masayoshi Yokoyama, Twinfinite Interview

Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name is a spinoff of that fills in a gap for the character of Kazuma Kiryu between mainline titles in the series. Kiryu is living in hiding under the codename of Joyry and completing missions on behalf of the Daidoji Temple he is taking refuge in. Just like the rest of the games in the series, this is a combat-heavy adventure game that takes the players on several side stories and quests. After this game, Kazuma Kiryu will be a part of the next mainline title, Like a Dragon 8.

It sounds like fans will be getting a compact but entertaining game in the same vein as the rest of the franchise as Ryu Ga Gotoku continues to grow its global audience. Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name is expected to be released in 2023 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. In the meantime, keep an eye out for the other title being released in 2023, Like a Dragon: Ishin!

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