One of the best Sega series going on right now is the Yakuza series. Being a foreign crime drama, the series is filled with action, mystery, and betrayal. This is all followed by the fact that the player character of the series, up until Yakuza 7, Kiryu fights with his fists rather than any conventional weapons like guns. The beat-em’ up style of gameplay is something that a wide variety of audiences can understand and pick up on, without feeling overwhelmed with mechanics like in traditional JRPG titles. Picking up and jumping into the story of the Yakuza series is really easy for American players, and topped with the intense main story, and its often comedic side quests, players from all around will find themselves falling in love with the series.

Even when the game changed to a traditional turn-based JRPG title with the seventh entry in the series, the fans who have stuck around from the beginning of the series fell in love with the new world and the new characters, even if the story didn’t include many long time ones. This is why the series is so popular, and why after 10 years, Famitsu has reached out to the team to talk about the future of the series after two of the biggest players in the series creation stepped down from the studio to move to different avenues of the gaming industry.

Former Director and Studio Heads Toshihiro Nagoshi and Daisuke Sato left Sega earlier this year to work for NetEase, which is a company connected to Tencent, a massive Chinese gaming company. However, all is not lost for Yakuza fans around the world, as the man responsible for crafting all the stories in the series, Masayoshi Yokoyama, is now the new director and executive producer for the studio. With the series in his hands, the Yakuza series will live on and retain the most fundamental part of the series, its story.

In an article with Famitsu, which has been summarized and translated by Ryokutya2089 and Gematsu, there’s some interesting information coming from the studio about future plans for the company, as well as the series in general.

One of the things mentioned by the developers is that they’re happy the company has gained as much notoriety as it has, seeing that something as ordinary as a developer leaving the studio to pursue new avenues is seen as a reason to make a massive announcement. Being that the company is so big now, to the point that the Yakuza series sits right behind Sonic in popularity, it’s no surprise that the company is doing as well as it has. Yokoyama spoke about the changing structure of the studio, saying “Nagoshi, Sato, and I have been the top three for quite some time, but changes are unlikely to occur in this sort of setup without shaking things up. In that sense, I think this structural shift is a sign of change.”

Speaking about the future of the Yakuza series, Yokoyama spoke about the possibility of a Yakuza 8. He mentioned that there’s going to be a sequel to Yakuza: Like a Dragon, with the working title of Yakuza 8. Yhe series is still going to center around the character Ichiban Kasuga, the protagonist of the latest entry. However, the series is going to be set several years after the events of Yakuza: Like a Dragon.

This is something that the series hasn’t done before. T the Yakuza series, aside from the prequel Yakuza 0, have been set in the present day at the time of release, drawing comparisons to the real world as parts of the setting. Yakuza 6 for example, took place in 2016, in which Kiryu was given a smartphone, whereas Yakuza 5 took place in 2012, which was also the time that the games were released. There’s a possible reason for this change, however, as the studio wants to place the game in a real-world situation that doesn’t involve anything related to the COVID pandemic, as the constant use of social distancing and lockdowns would make it difficult to make a game in which fighting and social interactions are key components of the title. Breaking this trend in the entire series for the upcoming entry would make sense if they were trying to avoid referencing the global pandemic and lockdowns in the version of reality in the Yakuza titles.

All games going forward from Yakuza 7 will most likely feature Ichiban as the main character if they’re planning on continuing the story of the character. Being that the original protagonist, Kiryu, got six titles, there’s a possibility that Ichiban is going to get six titles as well until they decide to start a new saga with a different character. For those who aren’t a fan of the changes to the gameplay the spinoff series, Judgement has you covered, and with the recent release of Lost Judgement coming out for PS5, Yokoyama has also mentioned that they’re working on a Judgement 3 as well. While they haven’t been announced, he has confirmed that they’re hard at work on making new titles. “The Judgment series is also very important to us.”

The most interesting thing to come from this interview is that the studio is considering working on titles outside of the Yakuza universe. “We’ll actively challenge ourselves to create new titles, not only for Judgment, as circumstances permit.” This wouldn’t be the first time that the studio has stepped away from the Yakuza series universe and worked on something completely different. They were also responsible for coding the remaster of Virtua Fighter 5, as well as being responsible for Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania and a full-scale Fist of the North Star title that functions very close to the Yakuza series. With these wide varieties of games under their belt, they’re very capable of doing a lot of things in the industry, and making more titles outside of the Yakuza Universe is a very good sign. However, it seems that they’re going to still be working on the series they’re most known for the time being.

When it’s all said and done, 10 years is a long time to be going for a single studio, and while they’re working on the next installments of the Yakuza and Judgement series, they’ll still continue to keep the quality of their games high, and the fans of their work pleased. Hopefully, sometime in the future, they’ll be able to port some of their titles to PC, since the only titles from the company that hasn’t made the jump yet are Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown, Judgement, and its sequel Lost Judgement. However, the Judgement games might not be their call until an agreement can be reached with the talent agency behind the lead actor for the series.