Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, creators of the Yakuza/Like a Dragon franchise, are coming off one of the best releases in their history this 2024 with Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. And the company’s plans didn’t stop there, with Yakuza Kiwami coming to Nintendo Switch next month, marking the first game in the series on Nintendo consoles. But there was another project for which we’d only heard the official title, and that kept us guessing: would it be the next big Ichiban Kasuga game, or a spin-off looking back on the days of Kiryu Kazuma?
Well, it looks like neither. Yakuza Wars, as this project is called, has appeared as an announcement on Facebook indicating that it is a mobile title and that it is in the strategy genre. The description reads:
“Sega’s first officially authorised mobile game: Yakuza Wars, as a new classic gangster-themed masterpiece on mobile phones, it creates innovative strategic war gameplay. Here, you can fight side by side with classic characters such as Kiryu Kazuma, Kasuga Ichiban, and Majima Goro, and write your own legendary story in the underworld world”.
Let’s not forget that the mobile games market is what currently drives over 90% of the entire industry’s revenue, so it’s not unreasonable for companies to be looking to exploit this market with well-established IPs. However, more than a few console and PC gamers are bound to be disappointed by this news, but there is still hope. Tokyo Game Show 2024 kicks off in a few weeks, and there’s no better place to unveil a big new Yakuza/Like a Dragon project than the Japanese gaming fair
Will you be checking out Yakuza Wars?