Although we’ve seen a SEGA game with a fishing theme, there was a chance that you could have added characters from the franchise formerly known as Yakuza…

Originally, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, the development team behind the franchise, didn’t design the game with pirates in mind. But it will be in their next game, Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, which will again be a side story, a Gaiden episode (the Japanese title even has the word Gaiden in it), similar to Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name. But if the new episode wasn’t about pirates, then what was it about? Masayoshi Yokoyama, director of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and executive producer of the franchise, told PlayStation Blog.

“At the end of Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth’s development, the idea of a spin-off featuring characters other than Ichiban Kasuga began to percolate. It was almost as if we were creating an expanded sub-story for Infinite Wealth. For a long time, I wanted to make a game called Like a Dragon: Tuna, in which Kazuma Kiryu goes out to sea as a tuna fisherman and fights fishing boats,” Masayoshi said.

Like A Dragon: Tuna? It sounds bizarre, but it’s true. It would have been somewhere between Dave the Driver and Dredge. However, there will be a major new feature in Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii: a jump button! According to Yokoyama, Majima, the protagonist who suffers from amnesia, looks good while jumping. He also mentioned the Sea Dog fighting style, which allows our protagonist to fight with two swords, and there are some tricky pirate gadgets he can use that way.

Yokoyama also talked about why the smaller subplot is good: “It’s the perfect size for adults. The Like a Dragon series is like an all-you-can-eat restaurant, where you can choose meat, seafood and whatever else you want and eat as much as you want. But as you mature, you start to appreciate balanced, well-proportioned meals. Spin-offs are like that.”

Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii will be released on February 28th for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Source: PCGamer, PlayStation Blog