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.
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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