Yakuza 5 – Five Cities?! Major Update to Yakuza Formula

[Shin-Ra]

Yakuza 5 in Development, Black Panther Sequel Due for PSP

Yakuza series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi will be making some big announcements later today. Thanks to Famitsu, we know the content of the announcements, and they are quite big!

The magazine details three major Yakuza series developments this week:

First up, for those who thought Yakuza was just a five year fad, the magazine reports that Toshihiro Nagoshi has formed the Yakuza Studio. In Japanese, the studio's name is the slightly less alarming "Ryu ga Gotoku Studio."

The first game from the studio is a sequel to PSP spinoff Yakuza Black Panther. In development for PSP, the sequel is titled, in Japanese, Kurohyou 2 Ryu ga Gotoku. It retains the basic gameplay systems of its predecessor. The game will be playable at the Tokyo Game Show. A release is set for Spring 2012.

Finally, the magazine reveals that Yakuza 5 is in development.

We should get more details on these items later in the day at Sega's press conference.

Yakuza 5, YEAH!! I think the press conference is in about four hours.

Black Panther was developed by Syn Sophia/AKI so the sequel may not be taking manpower from Yakuza 5.

Ryū ga Gotoku / YAKUZA (PS2)

Ryū ga Gotoku 2 / YAKUZA 2 (PS2)

Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan! (PS3)

Ryū ga Gotoku 3 / YAKUZA 3 (PS3)

Ryū ga Gotoku 4 / YAKUZA 4 (PS3)

Kurohyō: Ryū ga Gotoku Shinshō (PSP)

Ryū ga Gotoku OF THE END (PS3)

Kurohyō 2: Ryū ga Gotoku (PSP)

Ryū ga Gotoku 5 / YAKUZA 5 (PS3?)

Pre-Yakuza 5 announcement:

Nagoshi, who's currently working on futuristic third person shooter Binary Domain, was reluctant to say whether the series would return, but said that Yakuza: Of the End, the spin-off game recently released in Japan, was the last of that style of Yakuza.

"The basic style and mechanics is really an old game that started on PS2 and continued on PS3," Nagoshi said, "Times keep changing, and if we started on some new games they would be in a very different shape - so the last game was the end of one particular era."