After 13 Yakuza games and 20 years, Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is finally adding a jump button that could open up some wild minigame potential

Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is just as bonkers as the name makes it sound, but next year’s swashbuckling action spin-off also pushes the series forward in some key ways.

Announced at today’s RGG Summit 2024 as a follow-up to Infinite Wealth’s Hawaiian antics, Pirate Yakuza is a first in many respects. It’s Goro Majima’s first time leading a game all on his lonesome after holding on to his undefeated Fan Favorite Side Character belt for over a decade. It’s the first time, in any piece of media, that I’ve seen yakuza-pirate mutants. And it’s the first-ever game in the series to introduce a jump button.

I just heard your collective eyes roll from across the other side of the internet, but hey, a jump button in a series as audacious as Like A Dragon is no small feature to scoff at. Since Pirate Yakuza is going back to the series’ button-mashing routes, jumping definitely means we’ll be able to juggle a couple of criminals in mid-air, and some combat clips have already given us a taste of Majima’s off-the-wall abilities, shadow clone jutsu included.

Sure, it’ll be nice to jump over ledges and deliver follow-up whacks to an enemy I’ve just uppercutted. But what gets me more excited is the potential of all those new minigames. 2D platforming minigames, Sonic homages, garbage-collectathon minigames across Hawaii’s roofs – anything’s possible. Infinite Wealth already riffed on Pokemon Snap for its “sickos” minigame, so who’s to say this upcoming game won’t parody Mario or something? Either way, Yakuza’s always gone in the most unexpected directions with its minigames, and having another traversal ability opens the door up to all-new possibilities. 

Yakuza has seen a “large increase in new fans, including women,” but the JRPG series will continue being about “middle-aged guy things.”