At Tokyo Game Show 2022, we were able to take part in an interview with Yakuza series producer Masayoshi Yokoyama and talk about the recently announced Like A Dragon: Ishin. This is a remake of a 2014 Japan-exclusive spin-off title set in the Bakamatsu period of Japanese history.

Masayoshi Yokoyama is a veteran of the Yakuza series. He’s been writing for Yakuza since the first entry before becoming the franchise’s Chief Producer starting with Yakuza Zero where he remains to this day.

For this interview, Yokoyama spoke primarily about Like A Dragon: Ishin but also answered a few questions about the Yakuza series or ‘Like A Dragon’ as it’s now been officially rebranded, as a whole. He gave us more insight into we it was decided to remake the game, what players can expect, and even where the Like A Dragon series might go next.

What factors lead to your decision to remake Ishin?

“The original Ishin was released in Japan nine years ago [2014] and after that, we released a lot of new titles like Yakuza 6 and Yakuza: like a dragon. However, it was Yakuza Zero in 2017 where we fully attempted to introduce a localization to fit a global audience [Yakuza Zero is often credited as the game that made Yakuza popular in outside Japan]. Ishin’s setting is also based on Japanese history that international audiences may not be familiar with. Despite this, we still have a lot of international fans that wanted to see the title remade.”

“When planning projects, typically the development of newer titles come as a priority but at this moment, we found it was a really good time to produce a remake of Like A Dragon: Ishin so global audiences can enjoy it.”

For Ishin, you are using the Unreal Engine and not the Dragon Engine, could you tell us the reason for that? 

“The dragon engine was designed specifically to portray Japanese streets in a night environment. For example, Kabukicho in the game was modeled after the real Kabukicho in Shinjuku. In Ishin we have a lot of day scenes with sunlight and natural environments. After a lot of experimenting, we found that the Unreal Engine was the best match for the day scenes so that’s why we chose it.”

Since this is a remake and not a remaster, how much did you change in terms of the gameplay?

“One thing that’s really changed is the battle system which now uses the different attacks that can only be performed in the battle dungeons of the original. This time those skills can be used in the battles of the main game”

“My [Yokoyama’s] favorite skill was the attack from the Tokugawa Shogun. It was actually in the trailer, it looks like a laser beam. When we first started the remake for Ishin, we really wanted to bring in the skills that could only be used in the battle dungeon into the main stories battles and we ended up adding more and more attacks and they’ve become more and more dramatic.”

Is there any possibility for the future of the Yakuza franchise, could be divided into two different series for turn-based on brawlers? 

“How we pick the genre of our game is based on what we need to fit the setting of our protagonist and story. If we found that the genre that was the best fit was the party game genre, we would probably choose that.

“At this point, however, we found out that for Ichiban Kasuga the [turn-based] RPG genre was the most suitable for his character. If we found that Ichiban was alone without all of his friends then maybe it can be made into an action game but if he gets millions of followers then maybe it can be a simulation game!”

“There is really no solid plan to change the genre, we choose the genre to fit the story and the protagonist.”

Did you ever consider other genres of games for the franchise beyond action RPGs?

“No, we have just been making the titles that have been announced but we have approached other quite a few other genres few the mini-games. We have a baseball game, a racing game, and other mini-games that go into different genres. The main two genres in the series are likely to stay action games and RPGs.”

A big part of the Yakuza games is the mini-games. Since the setting now is historical, could you tell us more about how the team chooses which mini-games are included? 

“All of the mini-games needed to fit in with the Bakamatsu period so we took a lot of examples from the games that were actually popular at the time like horse gambling. We also wanted to bring back the mini-games that were popular with the fans like mahjong.”

“It is a little weird just bringing the actual mahjong into the Bakamatsu period so we made some rearrangements and made mahjong into a Bakamatsu style. A lot of that was done with the other mini-games to fit the setting. The team has tried to include as many mini-games that would feel natural within the setting.” 

Why was it decided to remake Ishin as opposed to say, Yakuza Kenzen?

“We’ve actually received more requests to remake Ishin than we have Kenzen. We believe that Ishin is also more popular. If we were to remake Kenzen, that would require us to change the story a little bit and that would take a lot of time to develop and consume a lot of budgets. We really need a good opportunity to consider a remake of Kenzen.”

Yakuza is known for being very funny but it is also known for being a good crime drama and right now it’s probably one of the only games on the market to fit that description. How does it feel to handle a series with that kind of prestigious reputation?

“The Yakuza main story always has a really serious flow. When players start the game, they may feel really upset about it. When we approach the story of Yakuza characters, there’s this concept that they cannot actually be happy so we don’t portray them as traditionally good people. This makes everything destined to turn miserable story-wise.”

“During the character’s struggle, you cannot let them have all of the hardship without some fun things. After deciding on the story and plot, the team responsible for the side stories, more of the funny stuff, comes in and shapes the balance by giving happiness and laughter to the characters.”

Since the announcement of ‘Like a Dragon 8’, some fans have noticed the final chapter of ‘Yakuza: Like A Dragon’ was named “The End of Yakuza”. Was the decision to change the series’ name made as early as that game?

“In Ishin there’s no Yakuza since they didn’t exist at the time so it would be weird to refer to the game as Yakuza. By the time we decided on the English name, we got a proposal from the US team that said “ we would like to introduce the ‘Like A Dragon’ title” since it was already being used for Yakuza: Like A Dragon at that point, so we decided to use the title for future games. It seemed like a good direction to go into.”

For a new player who didn’t play the original Like A Dragon: Ishin, what can they expect from the remake?

“The original game is already a spin-off from the Yakuza series so even if you don’t know anything about the Yakuza series, you can absolutely enjoy the game. You can really consider this a new game since the original was only released in Japanese. The tutorial was specially designed for this remake to make it easier for newcomers to understand and get into.”

It’s amazing to see how successful the Yakuza/Like A Dragon series has become in recent years. From a series whose games seemed destined to remain in Japan, these Dragons have risen to some of Sega’s most recognizable characters worldwide right alongside Sonic The Hedgehog.

We are very thankful to Masayoshi Yokoyama for answering our questions for this interview and wish him the best of luck with Like A Dragon: Ishin, Like A Dragon 8, and any future projects that are yet to come.

The Like A Dragon: Ishin remake will be released for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.