The year 2020 marked the success of the latest game in the Yakuza franchise: Yakuza: Like a Dragon. The Japanese video-game developer owned by Sega, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio is now not only working on a new Yakuza game, but on a mysterious brand-new title as well (via GameRant).
It has definitely been an eventful year for Ryu Ga Gotoku. One of the biggest turns of events the company has seen this year was when Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi, as well as director Daisuke Saito, left Sega in October. Furthermore, the studio has also seen some controversy surrounding the Judgment series. This controversy originated from an alleged dispute between a voice actor’s agency and Sega, which was preventing a PC version of the game from being released.
Unfortunately, due to disagreement, Lost Judgment might be the last installment in the series but nothing has been definitely confirmed as of yet. Earlier this year the company had announced that it had the intention of pursuing global launches and ensuring that its next titles were all reaching millions of players throughout the globe. This announcement was likely motivated by the fact that, in the past, some RGG games had a release in Asia months ahead of a Western release.
On to the exciting news: Ryu Ga Gotoku’s recently appointed executive producer Masayoshi Yokoyama has commented with Famitsu about some of the projects the studio is currently working on. One of these titles is the aforementioned new Yakuza game, Yakuza 8, which happens years after the events of Yakuza: Like A Dragon’s and brings back its protagonist Ichiban Kasuga, as well as a new original title. Not much has yet been revealed about this game other than Yokoyama’s confirmation that it is in the works.
In the meantime, while we await further news regarding the next RGG’s games, Lost Judgment and Yakuza: Like A Dragon are available for purchase. The former is available for all major platforms except PC and the latter is available for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.