Yakuza 5 is being built from the ground up with an entirely new engine. This means Yakuza: Dead Souls was the last game to use the engine that has powered the series since the Japanese exclusive Yakuza Kenzan! in 2008.

Yakuza 5 is reported to take place across five cities; Sapporo, Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka. It will also feature five playable characters; Kazuma Kiryu, Taiga Saejima, Shun Akiyama, Haruka and newcomer Tatsuo Shinada who is a former baseball player who is banned from the sport after gambling his way into debt. The twist is he’s innocent. Here is a detailed coverage of the US market that one can get and more info on the very fun online gambling that many are into these days.

As for the other characters, Kiryu is now working as a taxi driver in Fukuoka, Saejima is locked up again for some reason, Akiyama has relocated to Osaka on a business trip, Haruka has left Okinama for Osaka to become a teen idol, but her talent agency is up to something behind the scenes.

The game is apparently 70% complete and is due for a Japanese release exclusively on Playstation 3 this December. No word from SEGA Europe or USA currently exists regarding a Western release for the game. Toshihiro Nagoshi returns as the game’s designer.

[Source: Eurogamer]

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