The developers of the Yakuza series have suggested that the fifth video game in the series, which is set to be called Ryu ga Gotoku: Of The End in Japan, will see the franchise take a new direction, with the main challenge that players will need to face being a massive zombie invasion that threatens Tokyo, with the various mob bosses needing to work together to combat it.
The announcement of a
new Yakuza game surprised a lot of fans, who might still be working to complete the vast fourth title in the series, but the publisher SEGA has now begun talking about the fifth installment of the series, which might also be the last, as the title suggests.
Toshihiro Nagoshi, who is the leading producer working on the series, has told the Famitsu magazine in Japan that, “We've been releasing Yakuza games at the rate of one per year. The engine's been gradually improved down to the lowest of levels, and technologically it's gotten a lot better, but we still need to evolve - and in order to evolve, we have to tear things down first.“
He added, “We need to find the right timing for that, but we don't want to disappoint gamers by putting an 'under construction' sign in front of Yakuza. So with this game, I'd like to simultaneously tear things down and unfold some new developments in the series."
Famitsu offers a lot of details on the new game, saying that Kazuma Kiryu, Ryuji Gouda, Goro Majima and Shun Akiyama will be the main characters of Yakuza 5, trapped in the district of Kamurocho as zombies invade and the Japanese Self Defence Force seals it off from the rest of the city, trapping survivors inside.
Yakuza has once taken its gangster based formula to the Japan of centuries past so experimentation is nothing new to the franchise.
No launch date is yet set for
Yakuza 5 and it's not clear if the game will only arrive on the PlayStation 3 or whether it will go multiplatform.
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