Where Ubisoft’s ‘Quadruple-A’ live-service disaster Skull and Bones provided itself a failure, the next entry in the long-running Yakuza franchise is looking to provide players with the true pirate experience.
In a surprising move, SEGA has announced that the next title from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio will be Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, a pirate-themed adventure starring fan-favorite Yakuza 0 deuteragonist Goro Maijma.
Set unsurprisingly in the isles of Hawaii, the game will move away from the turn-based mechanics of recent titles in favor of more action-oriented combat and follow Majima who, after being shipwrecked and stricken with memory loss, ends up serving as a liaison between pirates and criminals while trying to uncover his past.
A new adventure sure to be filled with the familiar mini-games and special moments the series is known for, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is scheduled for release on February 28, 2025, across multiple platforms, including PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Notably, this new entry has been revealed just a few months after Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio released their massively successful Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, which hit shelves in January 2024, and is shaping up to deliver an absolutely unique and enjoyable experience
In contrast, the aforementioned Skull and Bones not only took over 11 years to develop, but felt outdated and stale immediately upon launch, with many coming to feel that the game was nothing more than a heavily uninspired, online version of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag.
The combat on the open sea feels great at first but quickly becomes repetitive before turning into an outright grind, players are basically stuck on their ships and have no real exploration options, and their online interactions are basically limited to just sea battles.
All in all, the game failed to deliver the pirate adventure players were hoping for.
And while Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii‘s dev cycle has been rather short, especially compared to other modern games, RGG is still looking to deliver a full-fledged game for just $60 USD.
Meanwhile, Skull and Bones’s was released with a $70 price point – not to mention whatever a player may end up spending via microtransactions. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot defended the high asking price by claiming that the title was the world’s first ‘Quadruple-A’ game. However, players weren’t buying his blatant marketing lies, and in turn the game burned out on Steam with a disastrous peak concurrent player count of just over 2,600 pirates.
With a fresh story and a development team who cares for quality over easy-monetization, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is sure to blow Skull and Bones out of the water and deliver a true, modern-gen pirate experience.
