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A Bunch Of Great Assassin's Creed Games Flood PS Plus This Month
12.10.2022
Sony’s revamped PS Plus service is getting bigger and better every month, and October opens the sluice gates on a torrent of great games. There’s Assassin’s Creed III and Syndicate, yes, but also a ton of Dragon Quest games, the recent remaster of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and even former Xbox...
The Yakuza Name Is Officially Dead
16.9.2022
The first Yakuza game was released all the way back in 2006, and the branding was most recently used in 2020's Yakuza: Like A Dragon. Across eight main releases and a number of spin-offs, the name became synonymous with sharp suits, hour-long cutscenes and bikes being smashed into dude’s faces...
Both Judgment Games Are Now Available On PC, You Should Play Them
15.9.2022
It was only last year that the future of the Judgment series was looking extremely dicey, courtesy of a legal battle over star Takuya Kimura’s likeness. Looks like that’s all been cleared up, though, because both games aren’t just coming to the PC, they’re already here.Read more
Yakuza Producer Thinks The Series Is Too ‘Underground’ And Violent For Switch
14.9.2022
In a new GameSpot interview, Yakuza executive producer and Ryu Ga Gotoku studio head Masayoshi Yokoyama expressed that he’s hesitant to bring the popular franchise to Nintendo Switch. He explained that the console’s family-friendly image in Japan doesn’t fit with the franchise’s mix of combat...
Sega Announces Another New Yakuza Game, Drops First Trailer For Yakuza 8
14.9.2022
Sega just announced two new Yakuza games that are on the way: Yakuza 8, the next mainline game in the series (and one which we’d already seen and knew about), and Like a Dragon Gaiden, an all-new release which stars series stalwart Kazuma Kiryu. That makes this three Yakuza announcements in...
Bringing Yakuza's Kiryu Back In Like A Dragon 8 Is Silly
14.9.2022
Last night, we finally got a look at the next mainline game in the Yakuza series, Like a Dragon 8, and the announcement trailer immediately had folks online racing to assemble memes poking fun at the youthful new hairdo of the series’ longtime, stalwart protagonist, Kiryu Kazuma. Although it’s nice...
Sega, Please Let Us Play The Yakuza Samurai Spin-Offs
29.7.2022
In 2022 Yakuza is a pretty big series in the West, as we saw yesterday when eight games made it to PlayStation Plus. But it wasn’t always this way! Between the release of Yakuza 2 and 3 things were looking incredibly dicey for English-speakers, and there were real fears that if Yakuza 3 didn’t sell...
Every Mainline Yakuza Game Is Coming To PlayStation Plus
28.7.2022
Sony just announced that Sega’s widely loved Yakuza series of criminal underworld sims will soon debut on its PlayStation Plus subscription service. The entire mainline series is coming, in fact. Read more
Game Pass Is Now Officially A Revolving Door For Big Games
5.7.2022
If you didn’t beat them the first time around (fair, they’re huge), you now have a second chance. Three of the best Yakuza entries are coming back to Microsoft’s games-on-demand service, alongside a handful of more family-friendly games. Here’s everything coming to Xbox Game Pass over the coming...
Yakuza Fan Is Fixing The PS2 Original's Mistakes
23.6.2022
It’s easy to forget in 2022, now that it feels like we get a new or remastered Yakuza game every six months, that for a very long time the series was MIA from Western shores, in large part down to the disastrous decisions made by Sega for the original game’s release back in 2006.Read more
Turns Out A Short Yakuza Is A Very Good Yakuza
18.5.2022
If the Yakuza (and its spin-off Judgment) games are famous for one thing, it’s that you can smash a dude’s face in with a bike and that it looks very funny. If they’re famous for two things, it’s that they are really long, and that their stories and cutscenes go forever.Read more
Uncanny: YouTubers Recreate GTA 3 Animations IRL All Over Tokyo
5.5.2022
Life imitates art, and nowhere is this more apparent than through these YouTube videos of a guy running through the streets of Tokyo, Japan as if he were a character from Grand Theft Auto 3. While the movement is strange for a human, it will look familiar to anyone who has tried moving around in...
Yakuza Creator Toshihiro Nagoshi Won't Be Making Smartphone Games
15.2.2022
After leaving Sega, Toshihiro Nagoshi set up a new studio called Nagoshi Studio in Tokyo. Earlier this year, NetEase Games described the wholly-owned subsidiary’s M.O., stating it “develops high-end titles for worldwide release, with a primary focus on the console software business.”Read more
Pachinko Is Not Doing Well In Japan
31.1.2022
Japan’s pachinko industry, a bulwark in the country’s amusement industry, has been hit hard during the pandemic. According to pachinko news site Green Belt, nearly 640 pachinko parlors closed in 2021. As of December 2021, there were 7,637 pachinko parlors affiliated with the Japan Amusement...
Report: Live-Action Lost Judgment TV Series In The Works
18.1.2022
Japanese actor and pop star Takuya Kimura made his video game debut with Judgment and its sequel Lost Judgment. Apparently, there are unconfirmed plans to adapt the budding franchise into a live-action TV series. Kimura was previously in a boy band called Smap, but has also been one of Japan’s...
The New, Chill Xbox Game Pass Titles You’ll Probably Download Over Winter Break
14.12.2021
For its final update of the year, Xbox Game Pass is getting some of the best adventure games in recent memory, including Firewatch and Broken Age. But, like the strangest charcuterie station you’ll hover around next week, they’re paired with debatably the least chill game of the past few years:...
Sega's Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio Is Making Yakuza 8
19.11.2021
In October 2021, Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi confirmed he was leaving the studio he helped found. Joining him in the departure was long-time series director and producer Daisuke Sato. In a new interview with Weekly Famitsu, the studio’s new boss Masayoshi Yokoyama talks about how these...
Lost Judgment: The Kotaku Review
28.10.2021
I loved Judgment, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s 2018 spinoff from the Yakuza series. Arriving just as the main games were getting ready to go through the biggest changes in their long-running history, along came a lawyer and his himbo best friend to keep some beloved old Yakuza fundamentals alive.Read more
Yakuza Creator Confirms He's Leaving Sega, Former Series Producer Joins Him
8.10.2021
Having first been rumoured back in August, it’s now been confirmed: Yakuza series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi is leaving both Sega and his own Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. Also joining him out the door is long-time series director and producer Daisuke Sato.Read more
Obscure 2012 Yakuza Game Is Getting A Fan Translation
8.10.2021
While we are now spoiled for choice when it comes to major Yakuza games, from the mainline series to its more recent Judgment spinoffs, there are still a number of older Yakuza games that remain unplayable to fans in the West, since they never received a localisation.Read more