Yakuza: Like a Dragon is formally announced in the West

SEGA managed to leave us shocked when they announced the next installment of the Yakuza series a couple of weeks ago. It is not that we were not expecting a new one, it's just that in the announcement they revealed that the combat system in the game was changing to a sort of turn-based system. That fact alone left all the fans of Yakuza completely puzzled since nobody knows for real what kind of game is going to be. A great part of the attractiveness of the previous games in the series comes from the way combat is handled, and such an unprecedented gameplay change could turn the new Yakuza game into something very disappointing for many players.

We could only have a glimpse of the Japanese trailer of the game, but now SEGA has decided to announce its upcoming title in the West and we finally know that it will be published under the name Yakuza: Like a Dragon. We can also watch a new trailer that reveals more footage than the Japanese one and that also has subtitles.

As you can see in the video, Yakuza: Like a Dragon will introduce a new character in the series. We will leave behind the story of Kazuma Kiryu, and move to Yokohama to follow the adventures of another Yakuza, Ichiban Kasuga.

A bit more of Yakuza: Like a Dragon has been shown during the Tokyo Game Show 2019. The event started yesterday, and it will be running through the weekend and was the best place to reveal some of the new features of the new Yakuza game. We don't say that because it's one of the biggest video games events of the year but because SEGA has implemented so many new features in the game that it almost doesn't look like a Yakuza title anymore, and maybe it will be only suitable for the Japanese public. It's not only the combat system that has been changed; you will be able to choose between different "jobs" for your character, and each of them will grant you different abilities and combat capabilities. There will also be a lot of side activities, like kart races, pachinko, and dancing, and even though those have always been present in the series, they contribute even more to make Yakuza: Like a Dragon look like something more similar to a Final Fantasy RPG game than an action-adventure video game.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon will be released in January in Japan, and it should be available in the West at some point in 2020.