Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has a lot going on right now. At this week’s RGG Summit 2002, the studio not only revealed more information on the just-announced remake and localisation of Like a Dragon: Ishin but gave us our first glimpse at Like a Dragon 8 and dropped the news of Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name.
Following the summit, we had the opportunity to play the game for ourselves as well as sit in at a roundtable discussion with Executive Producer, Masayoshi Yokoyama. The discussion covered a range of topics from localisation to genre changes and more but two ideas in particular – that the studio is committed to designing their games with their characters and stories at the forefront, and that they’re aware there’s more ground to tread when it comes to simultaneous global releases and release cycles in general – stuck out to me.
With the recent release of the Kaito Files expansion for the franchise spin-off sequel, Lost Judgement, it seemed like RGG Studio was toeing the waters of DLC that could serve both to tell new character stories through fresh game experiences as well as draw out the release cycle of their major titles without losing momentum with fans.
I asked Yokoyama-san how he felt about the Kaito Files DLC and whether the team had plans to continue supporting their games post-launch in a similar fashion and his answer, though non-committal, showed that he believes it could be a positive for the studio going forward.
“So, for the Kaito story DLC, if we want to make something exactly like that, the answer is we’re not really sure [about] a big story DLC. However, DLC in general? Yes, we’re quite interested in it!
“Until recently the Ryu ga Gotoku series came out once per year, and that’s just not possible anymore. The fact that hardware is getting more powerful, specs are getting more powerful. What’s demanded from a game, what’s expected of a game is getting much higher. It basically means that the development is much more time consuming, so it’s not possible for us to keep up that kind of pace anymore,” admits Yokoyama-san, who continues to say that one potential way to make up for these longer release cycles is to extend the life of each game.
“For example, especially for our games, as they’re story games. You could, if you wanted to sit down and play, you could probably finish it in a week, right? But we don’t want to make a game that’s just a one-off. Like, I sit down. I play for a week. I finish the story and I’m done, that’s it.
“I want to make something that has a continuation aspect that you can keep playing and enjoying. And from that perspective, maybe live service DLC or finding ways to make DLC to extend the amusement from a game is something that I think I’d like to do. And I think we’re kind of approaching it with a really open-minded, positive perspective.”
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Of course it’s not exactly a guarantee of the studio’s future plans, and you could interpret the idea of “live service DLC” a few different ways but the essence of it is, RGG is aware of the lengthening development cycles and how they can affect games that don’t have longevity built in. I’d be more than happy for the developer to keep filling gaps as they are now – with smaller, “gaiden”, games and remakes – but with the rich stories and characters at their disposal I definitely wouldn’t be opposed to more Kaito-style expansions in the future.
For more on the future of the series, head here to read our preview of Like a Dragon: Ishin, or read Masayoshi Yokoyama’s response to our questions about Like a Dragon 8.
The author of this article flew to Tokyo as a guest of SEGA.
