{"id":55848,"date":"2026-01-16T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=55848"},"modified":"2026-01-16T17:22:42","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T08:22:42","slug":"yakuza-3-was-a-game-with-many-rough-edges-and-making-a-good-remake-meant-confronting-that-reality-says-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/yakuza-3-was-a-game-with-many-rough-edges-and-making-a-good-remake-meant-confronting-that-reality-says-director\/","title":{"rendered":"Yakuza\u00a03 was a game with many rough edges, and\u00a0making\u00a0a good remake meant confronting that reality, says director\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties<\/strong>, the Like a Dragon series\u2019 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ryosuke Horii<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the most difficult and\u00a0delicate part\u00a0of developing a remake is deciding how much to carry over from the original,\u201d Horii\u00a0comments. \u201cIf you\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0handle that\u00a0well,\u00a0you end up with a remake of mediocre quality.\u00a0When working on this project, what I\u00a0kept in mind was respecting the original, but not\u00a0relying on it too much.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Horii explains that romanticized memories of what past titles were like can cloud a developer\u2019s judgement. That\u2019s why for Yakuza Kiwami 3, he acknowledged that the original was \u201ca game with many rough edges\u201d that needed to be addressed. \u201cYou can\u2019t make a good remake if you don\u2019t confront that reality. I think you need the courage to fight against those idealized memories.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Yakuza<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The director reveals that Yakuza Kiwami 3 has the youngest development team in the studio\u2019s history, which helped prevent the project from being dragged down by the past in a negative way. \u201cI think it\u2019s a youthful game, built on the foundation of Yakuza 3, but infused with the team\u2019s freshness,\u201d he comments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make sure Kiwami 3 offers enough to justify the remake, the game\u2019s systems have been modernized to a level comparable to RGG Studio\u2019s latest releases. As an example, Horii cites combat. \u201cMy impression of the original Yakuza 3 is that its battles were extremely difficult. It was tough to beat the game, and I\u2019d even say it was the hardest in the series. However, we didn\u2019t let ourselves be bogged down by that impression during development [of Kiwami 3]. Our game engine has changed since then, of course, and we\u2019ve 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.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Yakuza<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While Yakuza Kiwami 3 is a remake, Horii says he approached it with the mindset of creating a completely new game. \u201cI think it\u2019s a very ambitious game that doesn\u2019t just dwell on memories of the past.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties<\/a> releases February 12 for PC (Steam)\/PS5\/PS4\/Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox Series X|S. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a9SEGA\u00a0
\u203bContent is currently under development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties director Ryosuke Horii talks about his efforts “fight against idealized memories” when developing the remake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":55853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-55848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nYakuza\u00a03 was a game with many rough edges, and\u00a0making\u00a0a good remake meant confronting that reality, says director\u00a0\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties director Ryosuke Horii talks about his efforts "fight against idealized memories" when developing the remake.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/yakuza-3-was-a-game-with-many-rough-edges-and-making-a-good-remake-meant-confronting-that-reality-says-director\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Yakuza\u00a03 was a game with many rough edges, and\u00a0making\u00a0a good remake meant confronting that reality, says director\u00a0\u00a0 - 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