You ask me, you’re not a real series until you have a decent “Wars” game in your arsenal. GTA: Chinatown Wars, Dune: Spice Wars, Star Wars: Empire at… Wars. Who had ever heard of any of those series before they had some wars to their name? No one, I bet.
Now another joins the fray: Sega has filed a trademark for Yakuza Wars (via Gematsu). Actually, it filed it last month on July 26, and we know precisely zero about it apart from the fact that it’s related to videogames and—curiously enough—doesn’t bear the Yakuza series’ current Like A Dragon naming.
But the name suggests some kind of spin-off, perhaps along the lines of Sega’s Sakura Wars series of RPGs, or an expansion of the clan battle system in previous games. Or, worst case scenario, some kind of forgettable mobile thing, but I’m keeping my hopes up. Like A Dragon’s devs were out and about last month teasing fans that its next project would be a surprise for fans, and a Sakura-flavoured follow-up to Infinite Wealth sure wouldn’t be what anyone expected.
Plus, of course, Like A Dragon has form for experimental spin-offs: There’s the samurai game, the zombie game, and the game where Kiryu became a spy. A new spinoff that does everything differently would both be a surprise for fans and totally in-keeping with how Ryu Ga Gotoku studio has approached the games for years.
It’s a good time for it, too. Fans have responded well to the main series’ recent reinvention as a turn-based RPG, with the most recent game earning 80% in PCG’s Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth review, and a live-action show based on the series is headed to Amazon later this year. If RGG studio wants to add some kind of dating sim-y spin-off to that pile of Yakuza stuff I won’t complain. People have wanted Kiryu-chan and Majima to get together for years, after all.
