Focus will remain on PS4 for the time being
During yesterday’s Sega-Nama broadcast, Yakuza series general director Toshihiro Nagoshi stated that work on the story for the upcoming Shin Ryu Ga Gotoku (potentially Yakuza 7) has been completed. Highlights from the live stream, which were compiled by Game’s Talk, reveal that Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios is now in the recording phase of production with all of the main story bits being completed. Nagoshi is surprised at how well the cast fit their roles and is excited for players to see some unexpected actors playing characters.
As for how the game will differ from past Yakuza entries, new lead Ichiban is more talkative than Kiryu has ever been. According to Nagoshi, this gives Ichiban a completely different motivation for his actions and changes the overall tone of the story. This also has a knock-on effect on the gameplay, which is stated to feel very different from past Yakuza games.
With the PS5 seemingly on the horizon, the idea of developing for Sony’s new platform came up. Nagoshi sees some potential but firmly stated that the team will be sticking with the PS4 for a while longer. As he put it, games have progressed from more graphical capabilities to network features and now a return to something he calls the “programmable” era. To him, the bigger boost isn’t in graphics processing, but artificial intelligence and machine learning.
“If you would pour its [PS5’s] power into graphics it’ll be the best that we’ve yet to see,” Nagoshi said, “and I think everyone is thinking about in what way we should use that power. I as well. There’s artificial intelligence and many other things I want to think about.” That idea gets me more excited than any 4K rendering ever will.
I’m honestly surprised we have yet to see anything about whatever Shin Ryu Ga Gotoku is. With Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios releasing games on a yearly basis, we can’t be too far off from a Japanese release of the title. With development going very smooth for the studio, maybe we’ll even see something at E3 next month.
