Yakuza 8, or Like a Dragon 8, is currently in production atRyu Ga Gotoku Studio.Announced last yearat the Yakuza conference in September, It’s set to arrive sometime in 2024, serving as a direct sequel to Yakuza: Like a Dragon. The game will pick up one month after the last, with Ichiban and the gang navigating the yakuza world as it attempts to rebuild following the Tojo and Omi Clans' collapse.
And thanks to a behind-the-scenes video provided by Ryu Ga Gotoku, we now know that Ichiban will keep his wild haircut. At least, he will early on.
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The 20-minute videoshowcases the early development of Yakuza 8, which began in 2021. After creating the initial storyboards for Yakuza 8’s plot, Ryu Ga Gotoku then gets straight to motion capture, getting a team of actors into their warehouse studio to begin recording animation that’s expected to make it into the final game. Behind the men in motion capture suits, we can see a projection screen that shows what their actions will look like in the game. One of the modelsshows Ichiban Kasuga, still with his wild perm, but now wearing a white suit instead of the maroon threads he sported in the first game.
It’s possible that these character models are just placeholders, but the trailer announcing Yakuza 8 showed us Ichiban with the same hair and suit as Yakuza: Like a Dragon, so we’re expecting Ichiban to keep his look between the two games. However, another shot showed him with his hair tied up, ditching the afro, something that many were upset to see, but at least we know he’ll have that wild hairdo at some point.
Elsewhere in the video, studio head Masayoshi Yokoyama talked about how the studio has changed and grown in recent years thanks to an influx of new talent. “Some of our newer employees played our first games while in elementary school. Some became interested because they saw their parents playing them,” he said. “Lots of people join the studio because they want to make the Like A Dragon series something triumphant that they can take pride in.”
Yakuza 8 is scheduled to arrive sometime in 2024.
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