Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, the upcoming spinoff in Sega’s Yakuza series, is set to release on November 9. But unlike several recent games in the franchise, it will not launch with an English dub version. Instead, English audio will come to the game in a post-launch update. Sega has yet to announce a specific date for the patch.
Yong Yea, the new English voice actor for protagonist Kiryu Kazuma, revealed the news on his official Twitter account, saying:
Since Like A Dragon: Gaiden is a few weeks away and many may not know about this, [I] thought I should let you know the English dub will not be available on the November 9 launch date and will release as a post-launch patch (no official date yet). Hope you’ll look forward to it!
Like A Dragon Gaiden, which takes place between Yakuza 6 and Yakuza Like A Dragon, follows Kiryu as he assumes the identity of a secret agent named Joryu after faking his death to protect his adopted children at the Sunflower Orphanage. Now Kiryu… er, I mean Joryu, has a swath of new gadgets like explosive cigarettes, rocket boots, and Spider-Man-esque wire to beat up thugs and swing around the city. Hopefully, after Kiryu is finished having fun with his whole 007 license-to-kill persona, he’ll find time to make things right with that family he left behind. Yes, I’m still mad about Yakuza 6’s finale.
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Longtime fans of the Yakuza series have become accustomed to playing its games without an English voice track. Only recently have players been able to experience the Yakuza series with an English dub, with games like Like A Dragon and its spin-off series, Judgment. The last time the mainline Yakuza games had a proper English version was with the original U.S. release of the first game on PlayStation 2, where Hollywood actors like Michael Madsen and Mark Hamill voiced Kiryu Goro Majima. While that combination sounds amazing on paper, it wasn’t remarkable enough for Hamill to remember having played Majima, let alone recall what the Yakuza series is even about. Here’s hoping Like A Dragon Gaiden leaves a better impression.
Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name (GameStop) will come to PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One on November 9.