The “Yakuza” gangster collection has lengthy been seen as a Japanese “Grand Theft Auto” however Masayoshi Yokoyama, one of many foremost designers of the massively profitable video games, dismisses any such comparability.
“From the start, we decided not to have a game where you can hit people yourself. All fights start with a provocation from the opponent,” Yokoyama advised AFP forward of the discharge of the most recent installment on Friday.
“And the hero never hits women, that’s an absolute rule,” defined the gravelly voiced government producer of the collection. “Our approach is the opposite (of GTA). It’s a completely different game.”
The beat-em-up role-playing sport franchise has been working since 2005, telling the tales of big-hearted tattooed yakuza scuffling with small-time thugs and their ruthless bosses — however above all with their pasts.
The 15 video games launched to this point have been set principally in Kamuchuro, a fictional a part of Tokyo that bears a robust resemblance to Kabukicho, the Japanese metropolis’s real-life crimson mild district.
The new one, titled “Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth”, is ready outdoors Japan for the primary time, in Hawaii.
“From the beginning, we targeted a purely Japanese audience who actually go there and we wanted them to say: ‘Ah yes, that’s really how it is!’,” stated Yokoyama, 47.
GTA “offers a very large map where you can act freely, but in ‘Like a Dragon’, you operate in a tight and dense space where you enjoy a story,” he says.
But Yokoyama, talking at Sega’s high-rise headquarters in Tokyo, additionally wonders about what affect violent video games are having on society, particularly “when you see mass shootings on TV, and you learn that the author was playing at home”.
“It’s a very complex problem, but I think we can’t say that video games don’t have an influence, because, unlike a novel or a film, they allow you to have an immersive experience,” he says. “So I think that when creating video games that contain violence or yakuza stories, it is imperative to think about the effects that this can have on players.”
The collection was initially a distinct segment affair in Western markets however, with 21 million copies bought, it now achieves 70 % of its gross sales outdoors Japan.
The collection was by no means known as “Yakuza” in Japan, and the worldwide title of the brand new episode “Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth” drops the phrase for the primary time too.
“The plots of the games in the series have gradually moved away from purely yakuza themes to focus on social issues and the story no longer only concerns the underworld,” Yokoyama stated.
One of the one references within the new sport is that the hero — the identical as within the final sport, on the run in Hawaii — is an ex-gangster.
“Having the word ‘yakuza’ in the (English) title harms sales in Japan,” Yokoyama stated. “Japanese society is getting tougher and tougher towards yakuza. In the past, we could talk about it on television but it has become a taboo word.”
© 2024 AFP