The latest installment in Sega’s “Like a Dragon” series has leaked online, Yakuza Wars, but it didn’t live up to expectations.
This year’s Tokyo Game Show is likely to be the most important in over a decade, with Sony likely to unveil the PS5 Pro there and far more publishers than usual hinting at major announcements.
No doubt this is partly due to the fact that E3 no longer exists, but at this point it’s all just hints and speculation, and as is often the case with events like this, the reality may disappoint.
That would certainly be the case, as the Yakuza Wars name was previously leaked via a trademark filing after Sega confirmed that the developer would be unveiling its next game at the show. The only problem is that Yakuza Wars is a mobile game with what appears to be AI artwork.
Previously, fans speculated that the game might be a real-time strategy or musou game, or that it might have something to do with the Sakura Wars series, but ultimately it turned out to be none of those things.
A series of ads and banners appeared on Facebook in China ahead of schedule, confirming that the game is a mobile app with the subtitle “Dragon Among Men”.
A translation of the description describes it as “innovative strategic war gameplay” where you “fight alongside classic characters like Kiryu Kazuma, Kasuga Ichiban, and Majima Gorou to create your own legendary story in the underworld”.
Overall it’s terribly bland and definitely full of in-app purchases. Some fans even suspect that the graphics were created by AI, but that’s not for sure.
There’s no clear description of the gameplay, but one image shows a map of what appears to be Tokyo, and it seems very likely that there will be a gacha element involved in obtaining new characters (meaning you’ll have to pay a fee to randomly unlock a character of your choice as a new ally).
The only silver lining is that it’s not clear if developer Yakuza Studios has actually developed Yakuza Wars, so it might not actually be the game they promised to announce at Tokyo Game Show.
But if they’re not involved with Yakuza Wars, it’s unclear what else they’re working on, whether it’s another mainline entry, a new spinoff, or something completely unrelated to the series.