Yakuza creator says his new game will be an action adventure with a “rather high age rating” and complex game system
Former Sega developer and Like a Dragon series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi recently celebrated the 3rd anniversary of his new game studio. Since leaving Sega and establishing Nagoshi Studio, the creator has assembled a team of 80 experienced staff members and has been quietly working on something. So far, we’ve only been told that the new project is a “high-end” game with a focus on human drama, however, Nagoshi recently offered some new interesting details about it.
Talking to a Famitsu in a recent interview, Nagoshi describes his upcoming game as an action-adventure title, with drama woven into gameplay. Although Nagoshi is overseeing the whole project as a general director, he is writing the scenario himself, and is directly involved in development of the game system.
The team seems to be going to great lengths to depict the human drama aspects of the game, with the goal of achieving “a high level of expression.” To this end, they are even doing some of the motion capture in more costly studios in the US, rather than in Japan. In addition, Nagoshi describes the work-in-progress game as rather “large scale” in terms of content and map size, mentioning that the studio is also employing contractors for development.
At the same time, Nagoshi seems to be conscious of not going overboard with the game’s volume, as he comments, “there are so many titles out there, including overseas games, that you can’t play them all. The number of video games available to the average gamer is bordering on excessive.” Against this backdrop, Nagoshi reckons that “the era of high volume being the selling point of video games is coming to an end” and comments that he wants players to “be able to complete the game in a sensible amount of time, so that they can look forward to the next one.” Consequently, the team is currently trying to downsize the game map because it’s “too large.”
Aside from looking for the right balance in terms of volume, Nagoshi is also making sure his game doesn’t feel tedious for players, albeit mentioning that the game system may be a bit complex at first.
Regarding the upcoming title’s target audience, Nagoshi comments that the game will be for adults, with “a rather high age rating.” He is apparently hoping to create an unconventional kind of game that will make people do a double take in a similar way the Like a Dragon series did when it first appeared. “The worldview is something that overseas writers and creators would be unlikely to come up with. I want people to think ‘What’s that? I need to see more’ when they first see it, so I’m very focused on the uniqueness of the game.”
