Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties, the Like a Dragon series’ 20th-anniversary title that bundles a mainline remake with a brand-new spin-off game, has a free demo on the way. Ahead of the release, AUTOMATON attended a joint media interview with Ryosuke Horii, the producer and director of the game at RGG Studio. Horii shared some interesting insights on how he approached remaking the 2009 title.
“I think the most difficult and delicate part of developing a remake is deciding how much to carry over from the original,” Horii comments. “If you don’t handle that well, you end up with a remake of mediocre quality. When working on this project, what I kept in mind was respecting the original, but not relying on it too much.”
Horii explains that romanticized memories of what past titles were like can cloud a developer’s judgement. That’s why for Yakuza Kiwami 3, he acknowledged that the original was “a game with many rough edges” that needed to be addressed. “You can’t make a good remake if you don’t confront that reality. I think you need the courage to fight against those idealized memories.”
The director reveals that Yakuza Kiwami 3 has the youngest development team in the studio’s history, which helped prevent the project from being dragged down by the past in a negative way. “I think it’s a youthful game, built on the foundation of Yakuza 3, but infused with the team’s freshness,” he comments.
To make sure Kiwami 3 offers enough to justify the remake, the game’s systems have been modernized to a level comparable to RGG Studio’s latest releases. As an example, Horii cites combat. “My impression of the original Yakuza 3 is that its battles were extremely difficult. It was tough to beat the game, and I’d even say it was the hardest in the series. However, we didn’t let ourselves be bogged down by that impression during development [of Kiwami 3]. Our game engine has changed since then, of course, and we’ve also developed over ten action games in the meantime. In other words, this is a game built with the latest Dragon Engine and the full confidence of our current development team. I hope players can enjoy it with peace of mind.”
While Yakuza Kiwami 3 is a remake, Horii says he approached it with the mindset of creating a completely new game. “I think it’s a very ambitious game that doesn’t just dwell on memories of the past.”
Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties releases February 12 for PC (Steam)/PS5/PS4/Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox Series X|S.
©SEGA
※Content is currently under development.
