Scheduled for release on February 28, 2025, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is a movie to actions experience Like a Dragon: Eternal Wealth. This new subject features the line ‘ fan-favorite, Goro Majima, as the ultimate hero. I just had a talk with Mr. Masayoshi Yokoyama, RGG Studio Director and the Like a Dragon Series Executive Producer, along with Mr. Hiroyuki Sakamoto, the Like a Dragon Series, RGG Studio Chief Producer, about the show’s features and the behind-the-scenes reports of its creation.
PlayStation Blog: As a fan of the series, I’m most curious about why you chose Majima and thieves. How did this name initial come on?
Yokoyama: Around June or July 2023, much before the transfer of Eternal Wealth, the coder team was now mulling over the idea of an Eternal Wealth spin-off. We all knew that would n’t be enough to capture and convey the narrative if We Decided to Create Like a Dragon 9. We began to think about creating a spin-off that stars characters who are n’t Ichiban Kasuga at the conclusion of the Infinite Wealth development. It was almost as if we were creating a blown-up sub-story for Infinite Wealth. For quite some time, I wanted to make a sport called Like a Dragon: Tuna, where Kazuma Kiryu, as a fish man, sets off to sea to struggle against fishing vessels. Long story short, it always came to fruition, but words like” ship”,” sea”, and “fighting”, which had since then been engraved in my mind, evolved into the concept of thieves.
PSB: The line is known for starring unique characters as the characters. In Like a Dragon: Eternal Wealth, Majima takes the lead, as in Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Person Who Erased His Name. One of the benefits of spin-offs, I may say, is the ability to appoint new figures who are more than Ichiban Kasuga.
Yokoyama: I agree. As the character shifts in spin-offs, you can follow the same account from a unique view. Moreover, spin-offs are great in size for individuals. The Like a Dragon series is similar to an all-you-can-eat cafe where you can choose from meats, seafood, and anything else you like to eat whenever you like. But as you mature, you start to appreciate well-balanced, good-proportion dishes. Spin-offs are like that.
Wallpaper: Can you identify who Majima is?
Yokoyama: He faces his thoughts and hide his true self. His previous is mentioned throughout the line, but the real Majima persists to be a mystery. He feels the need to live up to the expectations of others and successfully accompany them. Nevertheless, in this passage, he suffers from memory, exposing his real self as the history unfolds.
PSB: Does that indicate that the correct Majima will be discovered at some point?
Yokoyama: You’ll know who he is through his relations with a son called Noah. It turns out he’s just a tough dude who likes to fantasize a lot]laughs ]. Majima examines himself objectively and recognizes who he really is in Gaiden while recalling his history. This is a book account growth.
But, Majima is not the most typical option for a hero. His uncertainty, while not the rule, is what sets him off and makes him interesting. When a figure like Majima becomes the character, it creates a gap between actions and emotions, when you get frustrated in a picture, but Majima does not even seem bothered, you may feel confused.
We do need a natural character who may act in the manner that players had hoped for a protagonist to. But the problem is that we’d end up with a dull character. We gave Kiryu and Kasuga more characters to develop them into characters, but Majima would turn out to be a dull man if we did that. To render him a character, we just had two choices: memory or travel back in time. Without memory, Majima had n’t had worked as a hero.
PSB: Next, I’d like to question you about the wars. This day, Majima switches between two war styles: Mad Dog and Sea Dog. May you tell us more about them?
Sakamoto: In Gaiden, Kiryu even uses two different fight models. We believed that two was the appropriate number to prevent conflicts from being too complicated. We wanted to make Majima’s war moves easier because of his quick movements. Simply pressing the buttons allows people to perform thrilling movements. The Mad Dog Style is based on Majima’s war tone that executes packages, jumps, and other reactive behavior.
PSB: I had some exciting battles at the Tokyo Game Show 2024 when I played the demo version. What was the purpose of introducing climbing?
Yokoyama: Introducing jumping changes the game considerably. In fighting sports, for example, people jump yet when there’s no need to. Furthermore, you’re helpless while jumping, so if you get hit, you’ll get blown away. For that reason, in activity sports, you’re usually unstoppable while jumping, but that can cause problems. We’ve avoided it until now because merely adding jumping alters the sport style.
However, the team made the decision to include jumping because Majima, the player, looks great while jumping. This is the first time that players can influence a character’s ability to jump, as opposed to merely participating in warmed fights. Instead of a typical leap action, it’s a jump-and-drop combo.
Yokoyama: Embracing two fight styles in a sport is very difficult. If one design becomes much more interesting, players will quit using the other one. It’s easy to attribute the war models under different qualities, but it’s difficult to make them both extremely satisfying. All ended up choosing the Sea Dog design because it turned out to be more intriguing in this situation. To top it off, the Sea Dog design has some fun masks.
Sakamoto: In the early stages of growth, the Mad Dog type felt a bit basic, and no one was using it. We then brainstormed ways to improve this battle fashion, and we are now in the final stages of fine tuning the balance between the two. Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii launches Feb 28 2025 on PS5.