Like a Dragon 8, Gaiden and Ishin: here is the future of Yakuza

Like a Dragon 8, Gaiden and Ishin

A first blow was struck during the State of Play, with the announcement of the remake Like a Dragon: Ishin !. But we know how the combos in the Yakuza series work: they are complex, devastating and often crowned by a painful finisher, with the enemy lying on the asphalt and crushed by the frame of a bike.

So, only a few hours later, the long-awaited RGG Summit 2022 arrived, the event organized by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio as part of the Tokyo Game Show, and it was there that the team not only revealed the release date of Ishin! extended trailer of the game, but also announced Like a Dragon 8 and Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name.

Here is the future of Yakuza outlined, although the franchise is no longer so called: three new games, two of which are coming in 2023 and one expected in 2024, which will carry forward (and backwards!) the story of Kazuma Kiryu, Ichiban Kasuga and their fellow adventurers.

Like a Dragon: Ishin!

Like a Dragon: Ishin !, a fighting sequence Coming out i l February 21, 2023, Like a Dragon: Ishin! is the remake of Yakuza: Ishin, the spin-off originally released in 2014 but never distributed outside Japan. Set during the Japanese feudal period, to be precise in the Kyoto of 1860, the game tells the story of Ryoma Sakamoto, a samurai visually identical to Kazuma Kiryu.

The man, unjustly accused of killing his father, he will have to explore the city in search of evidence that can exonerate him and allow him to identify the real culprit, defeating anyone who tries to stop him along the way. A mission that will not only involve Ryoma, but all of Japan, destined to leave an entire era behind.

Ishin! is obviously characterized by an action gameplay, like all the classic episodes of Yakuza, but also introduces a couple of interesting innovations related to the use of weapons, specifically the katana and the gun, which the protagonist can alternate with the use of fists for give life to highly spectacular clashes, which are enriched with new maneuvers as skills are unlocked.

Powered by the Unreal Engine 4, which perhaps will replace the historic Dragon Engine used so far by the Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, Like to Dragon: Ishin! boasts a completely redesigned graphics compared to the original (which, we remember, was a cross-gen production for PS3 and PS4), with substantial differences regarding the quality of the polygonal models, the effects, the resolution and the frame rate.

Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, Kazuma Kiryu Out in 2023, Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name was the final announcement of the RGG Summit 2022: a real surprise, since no one expected the arrival of such a title. The idea of ​​the authors of the team was to tell the period of Kazuma Kiryu's life that goes from the ending of Yakuza 6: The Song of Life to the events of Yakuza: Like a Dragon.

As we know, Kiryu he had to make a painful choice, abandoning his name and disappearing from circulation to protect his loved ones. A man like him, however, cannot stay away from the action for too long, and in the Like a Dragon Gaiden teaser we discover that he has taken refuge at the Daidoji temple in Kyoto, where he spends his days meditating. >
Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, Kazuma Kiryu That of the temple is however only a cover for the Daidoji clan and the former Dragon of Dojima works for them under the code name of Joryu, leading to term assignments that only a skilled fighter like him could handle. The last one is assigned to him precisely during the trailer by an unknown individual: escorting a certain person.

There are currently very few known details of Like a Dragon Gaiden: we know that it will be an action game, like everyone else the chapters starring Kazuma Kiryu, and we imagine therefore it will resume the classic formula of the series, with a thick narrative sector that serves as the basis for exploratory sequences and spectacular fights, which hopefully will take place within an unprecedented scenario. Will it be the city of Kyoto?

Like a Dragon 8

Like a Dragon 8, two figures roam around Kamurocho Released in 2024, Like a Dragon 8 was the only one of the three announcements already known to fans of the SEGA franchise, but despite this the teaser trailer that presented the game was amazing. Against the background of Kamurocho's iconic red gate, in fact, we see a man walking in the shadows: it is Ichiban Kasuga, the now well-known protagonist of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, who will naturally return in the new chapter.

After a few seconds, however, we notice a second figure joining Ichiban and only at the end of the video do we find out who he is: it is Kazuma Kiryu, albeit with an unlikely hairstyle of a Korean idol and platinum-colored hair. What prompted the Dragon of Dojima to change its appearance in this way? A simple midlife crisis or is there something else?

Like a Dragon 8, Kazuma Kiryu and Ichiban Kasuga We will probably find the answer in Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, which therefore from narrative point of view will act as a bridge towards the events of Like a Dragon 8, at least as regards the life of Kiryu. And Ichiban? After having regained his life at the end of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, the former member of the Arakawa family will certainly be ready to face new adventures.

Even in this case the details are very few, but we know that this new episode will maintain the RPG setting that many have appreciated, introducing the possibility of alternating at the command of Ichiban and Kazuma: a tradition of the series, see Yakuza 4 and Yakuza 5, which is revived for the occasion. Will it always work the same way, making us change characters based on the campaign chapters? Still early to tell.

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