“If you go at it continuously, you’ll get sick”
The longest Yakuza game to date will be Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.
In a new interview with Game Watch (translated by Automaton Media), Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio head Masayoshi Yokoyama described Infinite Wealth as a “monster-class game longer than anything we’ve made so far,” and one that can’t be finished in one or two all-nighters.
“This means that a lot of people are going to hesitate to play the game or will end up having it wait on their shelves. I found the possibility of that kind of outcome sad, so I thought, we have to get everyone hyped up enough to play it,” Yokoyama added about the length of Infinite Wealth.
“We have to get people to play the game in about a week or a month, even at the cost of their health, which is why it’s our duty as creators to generate enough to be excited about. I’ve thought this way for the past year or two – for a game like Infinite Wealth, we have to get a festival going on. It would feel kind of rude to just drop such a long game and be done with it,” Yokoyama added with a laugh.
The fact that Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is the longest Yakuza game to date says a lot.
By the time you were done with the grind, 2020’s Like a Dragon could easily run for over 50 hours, and many of the previous Kiryu-led Yakuza games could last anywhere between 20 and 30 hours, even if you stuck strictly to the main story.
The prospect of Infinite Wealth not only being the longest Yakuza game but also incorporating massive elements like the Animal Crossing-style island, is daunting.
It’s easy to see why Yokoyama believes such a long game will turn off a lot of people, but it’s also easy to see why he believes he needs it.