Ryu ga Gotoku Studio has finally unveiled some concrete details on its next Yakuza title in a recent press conference. It’s called Yakuza 7 with the subtitle “Hikari to Yami no Yukue” which translates to “Whereabouts of Light and Darkness”. Releasing on January 16th 2020 for Japan on PS4, it will be out later next year for North America and Europe. Check out the teaser trailer below.
Thanks to translated tweets from Gematsu, we know a bit more about new protagonist Ichiban Kasuga’s backstory. Set in Yokohama, it sees Kasuga exiting from jail after an 18 year stint. He travels to Kamurocho and meets Masumi Arakawa, who saved his life but is now pointing a gun at him. The title will chronicle Kasuga’s rise in the underworld.
It also seems that the combat will indeed be turn-based (seems that April Fool’s Day joke wasn’t a joke after all). You can still use your environment to fight but real-time physics and some degree of magic seems to be involved. Yakuza 7 will be playable at the Tokyo Game Show on September 12th to 15th so we’ll learn more about how it works. But so far, it seems to be a pretty significant departure from its predecessors. Stay tuned for more details.