Yakuza Kiwami 2 rated for PC

Yakuza Kiwami 2 has received an ESRB rating for PC, suggesting a release announcement is incoming soon.

The game initially came out on PS4 in Japan in 2017, and it's a remake of 2006's Yakuza 2 in the Yakuza 6 engine. When it arrives on PC, you should probably hold off until you've first played Yakuza Kiwami, which came to PC last month—and before you play that, you should jump into Yakuza 0, which is arguably the best in the series. Phil gave it a 90/100 in his review last year.

Yakuza Kiwami 2 continues the story of Kazuma Kiryu, and you can expect the same mix of punching, minigames and melodrama. The story revolves around the assassination of the Tojo Clan's chairman, and Kiryu's attempts to find a replacement in order to keep the peace between rival syndicates.

The ESRB rating summary gives you an idea of what to expect: "Characters use knives, pipes, and swords during combat and can trigger scripted special attacks (e.g., bashing heads into walls; stabbing enemies with a knife; ripping off nails and teeth with pliers)...Cutscenes also depict intense acts of violence: characters shot in the head; characters gunned down inside an elevator; a man executed with a shotgun." Yep, that sounds like a Yakuza game alright.

We don't have any word on a release date for Yakuza Kiwami 2 on PC, but I'll keep my eyes peeled.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.