Yakuza: Like A Dragon will be available on Game Pass from today

Yakuza: Like A Dragon - Black Market Merchant location
(Image credit: Sega, Ryu Ga Gotoku)

Update: During the Microsoft and Bethesda conference, this was confirmed to be accurate, with a trailer announcing that "the entire mainline Yakuza saga" would be on Game Pass. Yakuza: Like a Dragon will be coming to the subscription service today.

Original Story: The most recent addition to the Yakuza series—and the only one not currently on Xbox Game Pass—might be coming to the service soon. A bundle of DLCs listed on the Brazilian Microsoft Store included with the "Legendary Hero Edition" of Yakuza: Like a Dragon featured the "Included with Game Pass" tag (in Portuguese, of course.)

The tags are no longer visible on the store page, but screenshots were captured by Twitter user @pedroxbz.

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While the Yakuza games currently available on Game Pass tell the complete story of Kazuma Kiryu, Yakuza: Like a Dragon is the first to star Ichiban Kasuga, the new lead of the Yakuza series. It also shifts to JRPG-style turn-based combat, with developers Ryu ga Gotoku confirming that the action-focused gameplay will now be seen primarily in detective spin-off series Judgement.

In his review, Andy found it to be "one of the most uneven Yakuza games in the series", finding the combat repetitive but getting "swept up by its eccentric charm, likeable characters, and moments of warmth and absurdity". Despite being a standalone story, he recommended Yakuza 0 as a better entry point for newcomers to the series—but if they're both on Game Pass, the barrier to entry will be fairly low to try them out for yourself and see.

If the leak turns out to be accurate, the announcement will likely come during tomorrow's Xbox and Bethesda conference—possibly along with the same announcement for Back 4 Blood. Microsoft's big show is tomorrow at 10 am PT/6 pm BST. Here's the full E3 2021 schedule.