SEGA pulled an April Fools joke a while back about Yakuza where the game was a turn based RPG. The joke video went viral across social media in the west and in Japan. Fans began to wonder about a possible Yakuza RPG and reactions to the joke were positive overall. According to SEGA’s own Yakuza director, Toshihiro Nagoshi, he confirmed that Yakuza: Like a Dragon became a RPG because of this. Yakuza: Like a Dragon was actually an action game in development but positive reactions gave them the confidence to make a RPG. Here’s what Nagoshi had to say:
As I was thinking of how to follow the events of Yakuza 6, I wasn’t too confident on the margin of progress I could make. My pride doesn’t let me release a game that I’m not confident of, I thought we needed to fully review it. At first we said half-joking how about we make an RPG.
We released an April Fools’ video. Many people were assuming that we were already making an RPG at that point. Actually, it was really something only made for April Fools’ Day.
It was still an action game at the time. From there, the video was positively received, we suddenly fully changed directions. We started making it an RPG.
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