Six days or so ago, the world was perplexed and (arguably) pleasantly surprised by the next Like A Dragon/Yakuza game announcement. Popular mainstay character Goro Majima (formerly ENG VO’ed by Mark Hamill in the aughts) gets a starring role, and he’s cosplaying as a pirate in Hawaii? Sign us up!

Makers Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios have made it very clear that they’re upping the ante with each new game, but in a reasonable fashion. Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii is indeed a “gaiden” game; a side game that isn’t as long as the last mothership title Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, but still meaty enough according to producer Hiroyuki Sakamoto and director Ryosuke Horii during a Sega group interview at Tokyo Game Show 2024. They didn’t state the exact hours, but I did complete Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name’s main story in about 20 hours. So odds are Pirate Yakuza’s is 25 hours tops.

Taking place in, of course, Hawaii, Majima will be questing and visiting familiar places from Infinite Wealth and even visit new areas like Madlantis, which is its own hub town and looking like a 20th century pirate haven. But in the Like A Dragon universe, complete with its own despot ruler.

Our 30-minute playthrough of the Tokyo Game Show 2024 demo was loaded, to say the least. The two styles in focus for the combat Like A Dragon/Yakuza game are Mad Dog and Sea Dog. In Mad Dog style, Majima fights with his trademark knife and agility. He’s speedy, he hits fast, and can even launch opponents in the air and combo them off the ground like a Marvel VS character. For the first time in Like A Dragon history, a character can jump in battle.

Top: Director Ryosuke Horii.

“Majima is the protagonist this time around,” Horii said. “He is a little different from Kazuma Kiryu; he’s a speedy and agile character. It made the most sense to implement that with him to set him apart”.

In Sea Dog style, he has quite the pirate arsenal to make use of. He can fire and charge fire a flintlock pistol for ranged damage, fights fast with two cutlasses that he can throw in a spinning satellite fashion while he beats up people with his fists, and use his hook as a ranged grapple to close the gap onto enemies. While not as fast as Mad Dog style, the utility of Sea Dog more than makes up for it, giving Majima a versatile list of moves to combo to and fro with. Within minutes, I’m just picking fights in Hawaii just to go all-out with both of his fighting styles, thirsting for more battles in the tropics.

So how does the Ryu Ga Gotoku team curate minigames for each entry? It really depends on what fans want, according to both Sakamoto and Horii. The team took the community’s feedback into account from past games, which is why you see some favourites like Dragon Kart making a return from Yakuza: Like A Dragon.

I did ask if the team plans to add retro game titles from Sega’s Saturn and Dreamcast library, seeing as that would be a logical next step after adding in rarities like the Sega Master System collection (in Like A Dragon Gaiden) and that one Virtua Fighter 3 tournament 3v3 edition. However, they said they’re keeping it to arcade classics and anything from the Sega Ages collection, but never say never.

Sakamoto and Horii said that “little Goro” was added to the roster to brighten up the vibe in Majima’s group. He is also the key link between Majima and new kid character Noah Rich, as well as good company for the seemingly lone wolf that is Majima.

The casting for the characters and real-life personalities such as Samoa Joe were taken into consideration for this “gaiden” title, as the criteria is to cast people who can do drama and comedy well. “This is especially with a main character like Majima who is both dramatic and over-the-top [regular and pirate version]”, said Sakamoto.

Top: Producer Hiroyuki Sakamoto

This entry in the Like A Dragon franchise has a low barrier of entry for players, being an action game and all that also has the pirating element. So both Sakamoto and Horii are confident that new players will easily jump into the series through this entry.

Lastly, the team promised that there will be pirate things and culture added to the gameplay beyond what was from the debut trailer a few days before TGS 2024. We asked specifically about sea shanties, treasure-hunting and treasure-digging, and pirate crew management (ala AC4 Black Flag and its DLC), but the team can’t say more beyond the hint above until a later date. We do hope that’s the case because it would be a waste of such an interesting theme and genre, especially in a period where the only pirate game we have is a metaphorical broken cargo ship from Ubisoft.

Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii will be out on 28 February for PC (Steam), Xbox Series, and PlayStation 5. Tide yourself over with some karaoke from Majima (video below) in the meantime.