Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, the team behind the Yakuza series, the Judgment games, and the 2021 revival of Virtua Fighter, has many other projects in store.
NicoNico Chokaigi 2022, an event running from April 23 to 30, was the biggest gaming event this week in Japan right before the Golden Week holidays. Over there, Sega and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio held on April 29 the Ryu Ga Gotoku Super Talk Stage with series producer Masayoshi Yokoyama, who teased several unannounced games. Is City Hunter Ga Gotoku finally happening?
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim | Start Trailer
BridTV
9493
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim | Start Trailer
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/BUH6EJV-TRo/hqdefault.jpg
991440
991440
center
26546
Masayoshi Yokoyama Teases Several Unannounced Projects in Development Besides Yakuza 8
Early during the talk show, Masayoshi Yokoyama stated that since Yakuza 8 was officially announced, fans are all focusing their attention on that single game, but the truth is Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio is working on several unannounced projects. He added that he cannot share any details yet on any of these projects because game development isn’t an easy thing, so he isn’t sure if all these games will see the light of the day.
However, Masayoshi Yokoyama also teased us by pointing out that Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio does not exclusively develops Ryu Ga Gotoku/Yakuza games, citing Lost Judgment as an example, though you could argue that it is in fact part of the Yakuza series. All of this happened right at the beginning of the talk show, which you can still watch if you own a NicoNico Premium account.
What Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio Could be Working on? Virtua Fighter 6 Predictions
Masayoshi Yokoyama is currently the executive producer and director of Yakuza at Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, after the series’ original creator, Toshihiro Nagoshi, left Sega in 2021.
Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio released in 2021 Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown, which has quite a lively community in Japan with officially sponsored Esports tournaments. Fans worldwide too are doing their best to keep the game going. It’d be great if the studio worked on a true Virtua Fighter 6, though I am not getting my hopes up seeing the fighting games genre doesn’t have much of a future in Japan.
The pandemic was the final blow to a structure agonizing for years in Japan. And even if Japanese superstars like Golden Bomber’s Jun are trying to make fighting games cool again, there are fewer and fewer players in Japan. And that’s not even bringing up how the mobile industry is by far the biggest industry in Asia for over a decade now, and the fighting game genre simply doesn’t exist on it.
Seeing the worldwide popularity of games like Guilty Gear Strive, KOF 15, or even Melty Blood Type Lumina, makes me hopeful. There’s probably a future for fighting games worldwide. But at the end of the road, that future can’t be any different from our present. The fighting games genre will sadly never ever be more than a tiny fraction of the lucrative Esports industry.
What kind of games you’d like Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio to announce? What are your guesses regarding these secret projects Masayoshi Yokoyama talked about? Let me know in the comments!
