The Yakuza series, at first, was updated like clockwork. Sega’s initial design for the franchise was a new sequel almost every year, with Yakuza landing in 2006, Yakuza 2 hitting 2008, 3 released in 2009 and 4 in 2010. It’s a release schedule that shouldn’t be unfamiliar to gamers, especially in 2011, the year of thirds.

But Sega elected to push Yakuza 5 out of its release schedule, which at the time had some gamers concerned about the project’s viability. Sega’s intent with the extra development time is becoming clearer now that some details on the game have been released to the public.

The producer of Yakuza 5, Masayoshi Yokoyama, has indicated that this game is intended to be the San Andreas of its franchise, i.e. a game that dramatically expands on the precedents set in previous games and creates an entirely new experience in the process. Some things remain, like the core gameplay and the fact that the game is a PS3 exclusive, but almost everything else is being rebuilt from the ground up.

The intent of the developers is to include five complete cities in Yakuza 5 – if you’ve played any of the previous titles, Yokoyama indicated that each city will be similar in scale to Sotenbori or Ryuku. He likens the development process to creating five games at the same time, and I wouldn’t doubt him for a second – cities are very hard to build.
There’s still not much info regarding when Yakuza 5 will actually hit shelves, but for now you can assume it’s quite a ways away. Late 2012 or early 2013 are probably the best-case scenarios.

But, it looks like the game that does land will be a more powerful, more interesting and more impressive version of the franchise. San Andreas was a huge moment for GTA, perhpas Yakuza has a similar moment on the horizon.

What do you think about Yakuza’s extended development time? Worth it, or too long to wait?

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