Yakuza – Gloomberg News

Screenshot: SegaIn 2022 Yakuza is a pretty big series in the West, as we saw yesterday when eight games made it to PlayStation Plus. But it wasn’t always this way! Between the release of Yakuza 2 and 3 things were looking incredibly dicey for English-speakers, and there were real fears that if Yakuza 3 didn’t sell well, it would be the last game in the franchise we’d ever get to see here.I know this sounds absurd given the number and prominence of Yakuza games around these days, but it’s true! Folks were so anxious about it, in fact, that every tiny little change that Sega made to Yakuza 3's English release was scrutinised to hell and back, with fans terrified that any little thing that could potentially hurt sales would mean the end of the series in the West.All that fear counted for noth...

It’s easy to forget in 2022, now that it feels like we get a new or remastered Yakuza game every six months, that for a very long time the series was MIA from Western shores, in large part down to the disastrous decisions made by Sega for the original game’s release back in 2006.The whole point of the Yakuza series is that it’s Japanese as hell, from the convenience stores to the overwrought voice-acting, but for the series’ debut in North America and Europe Sega made the bizarre decision to essentially tilt the entire experience on its axis via its localisation.Voice actors like Michael Madsen, Mark Hamill and Eliza Dushku were brought in (at the expense of the Japanse audio track, which was cut entirely), the script’s tone was altered to be a bit more street and the whole vibe of the gam...

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