One of the most beloved franchises of recent years has been Yakuza, from Japanese studio Ryu Ga Gotoku. A saga that has made its way little by little on European and American territory, conquering players with each new opus. Thanks to this, we have seen how the last games of the franchise already come with voices in English when before they were only in Japanese.
But that’s something that will change with the next game, Like a Dragon: Ishin! The title, which is a remaster made from scratch, will arrive for the first time in the West in 2023, but only with voices in Japanese.
Like a dragon: Ishin! wants to keep the essence of Japanese
The reason, as the developer explained, is to maintain the essence of the language that was spoken in the Edo period, when the title is set. In this way we will not have voice in English or any other language, but we will have subtitles, at least, in English.
For the new version of Ishin, we use subtitles. We do not dub voiceovers. We’re translating the game into English, but the specialized vocabulary and the way people spoke in Bakumatsu times made the lines incredibly long, so it just wouldn’t work. So this time we are doing subtitles.
The reason seems to make a lot of sense, at least in our opinion. Logical reasoning, retaining the essence of the language of the moment in which it is represented. This of course does not mean that the next games in the franchise already announced, Like a Dragon 8 and Like a Dragon: The Man Why Erased His Name, will not arrive dubbed in the West. Something that will surely happen, given the company’s recent history.
Like a dragon: Ishin! It will arrive on Xbox Series X | S, Xbox One, PC and the rest of current platforms on February 21, 2023.
