The game I think most of us are waiting for with bated breath has taken another step towards a local release — Like A Dragon: Ishin! has been rated in Australia.
The game, available in Japan for some time but never formally launched in the West, is a spin-off of the wildly popular Yakuza/Like A Dragon franchise set in feudal Japan.
Like A Dragon: Ishin! is set during the Bakumatsu era of the Late Edo Period, between 1853 and 1867. Roaming the streets of Kyoto, wracked by self-doubt and his changing role in Japanese society, samurai Ryoma Sakomoto (who was a real person!!) finds himself tangled up in a coup d’etat that sees his mentor slain. Consumed with a need to unmask the murderer, Sakamoto assumes a secret identity and joins the Shinsengumi, a special police force created by Japan’s military government.
The Classification website seems to be having some problems this morning, but here’s the link to the official listing. You can also find the game in the master list of recently rated titles (at the time of writing it will be sitting at the top of the list). Because the game’s Classification page is currently inaccessible, I can’t see the specifics around its rating, but what I can see is that it has received an MA15+ rating citing Strong Violence, which doesn’t come as a surprise.
If you’re wondering why it’s called Like A Dragon instead of Yakuza, even though it’s part of the same franchise, that’s because Sega has declared it is dropping the Yakuza name. Moving forward, all games in this franchise will go by Like A Dragon, a direct translation of the franchise’s Japanese title, Ryū ga Gotoku.
Despite releasing in Japan in 2014 as a launch title for the PS4, these games never made their way to the West. However, the Western success of Ghost of Tsushima and the sudden rush to capitalise on historical samurai games it inspired tipped the scales at Sega. Like A Dragon: Ishin! will now launch in the West on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on February 21, 2023.
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