Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, developers of the Like a Dragon/Yakuza series, has announced their newest game, and it’s pirate and yakuza crossover. Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii will put players in control of the eccentric Goro Majima as he recounts his travels to Hawaii and the rise of his pirate career.
I’ll be honest: Rolling out of bed this morning I actually had to check if this was real, and I hadn’t just stayed up too late last night watching Pirates of the Caribbean clips on YouTube while playing Yakuza Kiwami. But no, it’s definitely real, and it’s coming to PC, Xbox, and PlayStation platforms on Feb. 28, 2025.
Image Credit: RGG Studio
The game seems focused on filling in a minor plot hole in Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, mainly what happened to Majima? Majima has been a significant side character since the very first Yakuza title and this game is focused entirely on him as his helps some Hawaii natives fight off pirates.
Going back to Yakuza’s beat-’em-up roots, this is a brawler game rather than a RPG like many of the recent entries in the series. But since it’s Majima it’s got some wrinkles to make it crazier, such as jump attacks and plenty of insane moves.
Image Credit: RGG Studio
Overall, this just looks like an absolute fever dream of a game. Yakuza titles have sometimes veered into other settings as with Like a Dragon Ishin!, Yakuza: Dead Souls and even Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, which is just a Yakuza game that happens to have the Fist of the North Star licence. But this Pirate Yakuza title seems just absolutely over-the-top.
RGG has also started splitting its titles into major and minor releases, with a title like Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth being a main-line major release, and something like Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, being a minor title to tie up loose ends. Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii definitely falls into the latter category, but it still looks incredible.
RGG is also notorious for its in-house game-jams to make interesting and funny minigames for its titles. It’s where the slot-car and hostess minigames for the Yakuza series came from. And looking at Pirate Yakuza, as we’ll call it for short, it feels like this might have started off as a pirate minigame, before spiraling into a full story.
Image Credit: RGG Studio
We honestly could have imagined this as a tacked-on post-game for Infinite Wealth, but the modern economics of video games mean it’s getting a separate release.
But we’ll have to wait until next year to see if that’s the case. Until then, lets see if we can manifest something even more crazy out of RGG. Kiryu fighting dinosaurs? A space combat game? Sky’s the limit it seems.
