Sega Dev Reveals The Truth: The Like A Dragon Games Were Never About The Yakuza

Do you still think about the strangeness of Yakuza’s sudden rebrand to its new title, Like A Dragon? Why would Sega take back the name that the franchise was already known for for twenty years, knowing that longtime fans would get confused in the transition? Wouldn’t it be easier to just stick to the original name? Finally, Sega gives us some real insight to all of this.

In a new interview with EDGE Magazine, the franchise’s director, Masayoshi Yokoyama, made the surprising revelation that the “Yakuza” games were not about being a yakuza at all.

This is how Yokoyama explains it:

“Our studio’s main objective is not to depict Japanese Yakuza. It is to depict people who are in positions where they are more likely to experience life-or-death situations. This enables us to explore fundamental human emotions and drama.”

The first time you read a statement like that, it absolutely will not make sense on its face. Isn’t the game’s main protagonist Kazuma Kiryu a yakuza leader? Aren’t you always fighting other yakuza to be the biggest yakuza group in Japan?

But people who played the Yakuza games for years will understand the nuances behind Yokoyama’s sentiment. Yes, Kiryu was a yakuza, but in the setting of the first game he is actually a former yakuza gang member, who’s trying to keep his nose clean, and was drawn back in to yakuza business as a matter of honor, more than because of his own personal ambitions.

Kiryu could have become the Scarface or Walter White of his universe, but we also know that isn’t the direction the Yakuza games went in.

Soon, the Yakuza games would get wackier and sillier, as Kiryu would be given more ludicrous and amusing side quests, that entrench him closer to the people in his native Kamurocho, and later, Okinawa. This was a deliberate decision by Sega, to make Kiryu more appealing to the players.

Eventually, Kiryu would embrace a role that would take him away from the violence of the yakuza world completely. By Yakuza 3 he would be running the Morning Glory orphanage, adopting nine children, including Haruka, the daughter of his childhood love, who he fully embraces as his own.

Today, the Like A Dragon games are eager to embrace the sillier turn of the franchise fully, a far cry from its once presumptive influence in Japan’s formative Yakuza Papers franchise of movies.

Like A Dragon 8 was announced last year, and will be releasing in 2024 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Windows, and SAteam.

Source: EDGE via Games Radar