The Yakuza spinoff Judgment is soon to release outside Japan (and return to Japan shelves following rather bizarre turn of events with one of the actors involved), but there’s really no rest for the franchise. Not only are remasters of previous games in the works, brand new game in the series is in development as well, and it looks like work it’s going well, according to series director Toshihiro Nagoshi.
Nagohsi was on the latest Sega-Nama broadcast (which you can view below), and he talked about the next game in the series. He said the story is done and finished, and they are now in the recording phase with most of the main parts in the can. The next game will follow a new protagonist, Ichiban Kasuga, who is more talkative than the previous main character, Kazuma Kiryu. While he stops short of detailing anything, Nagoshi does say to expect a different style from both the story and gameplay, which is something he’s mentioned before.
He also talks a little about Sony’s upcoming console, the PlayStation 5, saying he’s amazed at the processing power of the machine. He thinks the next level of graphics is going to be more impressive than people realize. Unfortunately for some fans hoping to see a PS5 Yakuza sooner rather than later, Nagohsi also says RGG Studios plan to still focus on the PS4 for Yakuza titles even after the PS5 releases (thanks to Gematsu for translations).
While we don’t know much about the next Yakuza game, there are the upcoming remasters as well as Judgment (which releases June 25th on PS4) for fans to dive into in the meantime.