Finally, a game that recognizes the technique behind smacking gangsters with a baseball bat.
Yakuza 0 Trailers
If there's one aspect of the Yakuza franchise that never fails to impress, it's the series' combat system. With each new installment, the Yakuza development team finds a way to up the ante and produce fighting mechanics so over-the-top that no other game can possibly hope to match the sheer chaos.
The latest trailer for Yakuza 0 proves that the franchise's step back into the 1980s doesn't represent a step back in the intensity of the combat. In this gloriously ridiculous preview, you will be treated to a sneak peek at a variety of upgradeable fighting styles that let you define how your characters take on the underworld.
Yakuza 0 Latest News
Continuing the franchise's trend of releasing in the West in a fashionably late manner, Sega has announced that Yakuza 0 will be available in Europe and North America starting on January 24, 2017.
It's been over a year since Yakuza 0 debuted in Japan on the PlayStation 4, and its eventual Western release date will come in at just under a two-year difference between the two releases. In the past, it has been suggested that the reason behind these lengthy delays has to do with the incredible amount of translation and localization work that must go into these astonishingly detailed open-world epics.
Yakuza 0 has long been a particular project of interest for franchise fans due to both the game's overwhelmingly positive reception and its premise. This entrant serves as a prequel to the Yakuza franchise as it takes players back to the magical year of 1988. There, they will follow the adventures of a criminal upstart named Kiryu who is just starting to climb his way up the ladder of the Dojima crime syndicate before an assignment gone bad sends his life into a tailspin.
This release will also mark the first time that on-screen directions for the game will be written out in English since Yakuza 2 and it will offer players the chance to finally play as series' favorite NPC Goro Majima. Other than that, you can expect to find the same incredible fighting system, bizarre moments of humor, and unbelievably large in-game world that the Yakuza titles are renowned for.
PlayStation 3 gamers who have perhaps never tried the franchise before will get the chance to do so for free next month as Yakuza 5 was recently revealed to be one of that system's complimentary PlayStation Plus games for the month of August. Sadly, that offer does not extend to the PlayStation 4.