If confirmation of Yakuza 6‘s release date in Japan has left you battling the green-eyed monster, then we come with good news: Yakuza 0, the series’ 80s spin-off, will deploy on 24th January exclusively on the PlayStation 4 in North America and Europe.
For those that don’t know, this entry takes series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu all the way back to the beginning of his story, as the fresh-faced 20-something begins to cut his teeth in Japan’s seedy gangster underworld. He’ll be accompanied by franchise Favorite Goro Majima – the one with the snake-skin jacket and loud mouth.
After a few years ignoring the Yakuza franchise – Sony was actually responsible for the release of Yakuza 5 – it seems that SEGA’s fallen back in love with the series, as it’s translating everything – including things like chapter titles, which have employed their native kanji since Yakuza 2. This project’s got a bigger localisation budget than recent entries.
While this installment very much sticks to the tried and tested Yakuza blueprint of open world exploration and Streets of Rage-esque brawling, it’s got a ton of new time period-appropriate minigames, like chat-up lines and pocket car races. You can also expect to play a game or two of Yu Suzuki’s classic OutRun in the local arcade.
