For the reason that reveal of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, many veteran followers of the collection have been perplexed by the choice to carry again long-time collection protagonist Kazuma Kiryu as a twin protagonist. Nevertheless, Like a Dragon collection producer Hiroyuki Sakamoto claims that Kiryu’s return has been within the playing cards for an extended, very long time.
First, some context. Be warned: beneath the video, we have included spoilers for the ending of Yakuza 6: Music of Life, and the late-game of Yakuza: Like a Dragon.
On the finish of Yakuza 6: Music of Life, Kiryu fakes his personal loss of life to guard these closest to him, successfully ending his profession as a member and/or pawn of the yakuza. Nevertheless, he made a short return in Yakuza: Like a Dragon in a dramatic phase the place he battles protagonist Kasuga Ichiban. The late-game battle is extremely troublesome, and was seen by many gamers as symbolizing Kiryu passing the torch of being “the dragon” from himself to Ichiban – a real last farewell for Kiryu of types.
With that context, it is smart why followers had been so stunned to seek out out that Kiryu would return in full in not simply the eighth collection installment, but in addition in an upcoming spinoff entitled Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Identify. Nevertheless, after we spoke to Sakamoto at gamescom 2023, he indicated that the plan had all the time been for Kiryu to return, even way back to the event of Music of Life.
After we mentioned goodbye to [Kazuma Kiryu], we had been nonetheless planning to have him seem as a double protagonist for [Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth]
“After we mentioned goodbye to [Kazuma Kiryu], we had been nonetheless planning to have him seem as a double protagonist for [Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth]. So, this has been sort of a very long time one thing that we have been serious about. So, additionally in [Yakuza: Like a Dragon], Kazuma sort of appeared as a kind of backup character, and lots of people who performed [Yakuza: Like a Dragon] however weren’t accustomed to the earlier video games within the collection are in all probability nonetheless questioning, ‘Who is that this character and what’s his function?’ inside the collection.
“So, [Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name] was sort of invented as a derivative, a Gaiden, however what we actually wished to do with it was discuss what kind of life Kazuma had from the top of [Yakuza 6] to the occasions in [Infinite Wealth]. So, what he was doing within the background and what he was as much as. That is the objective for this complete recreation.”
We additionally spoke with Sakamoto about extra particulars from Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Identify, together with some tidbits about his style, a brand new battle enviornment referred to as the Coliseum, and the presence of Ono Michio within the recreation. You possibly can learn our full Q&A proper right here, and meet up with all the remainder of the information popping out of gamescom with our roundups of day one and Opening Night time Dwell. And for extra Like a Dragon Gaiden, try our first preview of the sport proper right here.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Obtained a narrative tip? Ship it to rvalentine@ign.com.