Samurai-era Yakuza spin-off is getting a surprise remake and English localization

Update: In a tweet, developer RGG Studio confirmed Like a Dragon: Ishin! will come to consoles and PC in February (hooray!). Original story below.

Big day for Yakuza news: First the modern murder mystery thriller series Judgment gets rated for PC, and now the feudal Japan spin-off Yakuza Ishin, first released on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 in 2014, is getting a remake. More importantly: it's being localized for the first time.

Like a Dragon: Ishin! is set in 1860s Edo Japan and puts you in the shoes of famous samurai Ryōma Sakamoto—though he happens to be a dead ringer for Yakuza series protagonist Kiryu, and he's also changed his name to… well, you get the idea. Ishin plays a lot like the other Yakuza games, with a heavy dose of cutscenes interspersed with beat-em-up (or in this case, slice-em-up) action. There's also farming and cooking and other side activities, like chicken racing and mahjong.

The trailer for Like a Dragon: Ishin! that debuted during Sony's State of Play stream on Tuesday was running on a PS5, and makes no mention of a PC release. But it seems like almost a foregone conclusion at this point, with Judgment on the way as well. The trailer teases a livestream tomorrow, September 14 at 10 am UTC (that's 3 am PST / 11 am BST), which may give us the PC confirmation we're hoping for.

The remake releases on PlayStation in February 2023.

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).