Yakuza Kiwami

Like the original game, Yakuza Kiwami is an action-adventure game with role-playing elements set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective. The player controls protagonist Kazuma Kiryu as he explores the streets of Kamurocho, a fictional district of Tokyo based on the real-life Kabukichō district. Yakuza Kiwami entirely forgoes the combat system of the original game; its combat is largely similar to the prequel Yakuza 0. Players will earn both money and experience points by defeating enemies or completing side quests. Experience points can be used to acquire upgrades for Kiryu such as new techniques or an extension to his health bar. Money can be spent to purchase equipment or healing items, or to play various minigames and side-activities such as gambling, karaoke, and the card battle game Mesuking. Kiwami introduces a new gameplay system called "Majima Everywhere", which replaces the Mr. Shakedown system previously present in Yakuza 0, in which rival character Goro Majima will appear frequently to challenge Kiryu to a fight. Majima will appear randomly during exploration, as well as in predetermined challenges based on the player's progress in Majima Everywhere. Majima will also sometimes appear when playing a minigame (like darts or bowling) and will challenge Kiryu. Defeating Majima in different scenarios will increase the player's Majima Everywhere rank and unlock new abilities in Kiryu's Dragon style. ==Plot==

Similar to the plot of the original Yakuza, the game centers around yakuza lieutenant Kazuma Kiryu (Takaya Kuroda), who takes the blame up for the murder of his patriarch Sohei Dojima, committed by his sworn brother and best friend Akira Nishikiyama (Kazuhiro Nakaya), spending ten years in prison before being granted parole. A free man, Kiryu discovers that Nishikiyama is now a powerful but cold-hearted yakuza boss, his childhood friend and girlfriend Yumi Sawamura (Maaya Sakamoto) has gone missing, and everyone is searching for ten billion yen that was stolen from his former organization, the Tojo Clan. As war erupts throughout the streets of Kamurocho between many different factions (including government agents and the Triad), Kiryu decides to find Yumi and the missing money, and protect Haruka (Rie Kugimiya), a mysterious young girl whom everyone seems to be after. Eventually, a remorseful Nishikiyama sacrifices himself to kill Haruka's father, Kyohei Jingu (Hiroaki Yoshida), who was a corrupt politician bent on destroying the Tojo and his loved ones, while Yumi died in Kiryu's arms from a gunshot wound. Rather than give in to despair and allow himself to be arrested, Kiryu leaves the Tojo and becomes Haruka's adoptive father. Kiwami's story also introduces two new plot lines focused on Nishikiyama and Goro Majima (Hidenari Ugaki), a ruthless Tojo captain and Kiryu's rival. Nishikiyama's story is told in flashbacks and focuses on his descent into madness. The day after Dojima's murder and Kiryu's arrest, the Dojima Family tries to figure out the culprit while mocking Nishikiyama for his ineptitude. In 1996, the Kazama Family decides to give Nishikiyama his own "family" to control, with the expectation that he would look out for Kiryu now that he had been expelled from the Tojo Clan. However, he proves to be an incompetent leader, with his family captain, Matsushige (Hitoshi Ikeda), who was hired because he was the top earner in the Kazama Family, disrespecting him and commanding more respect among his men. As Yuko, his terminally ill sister, requires a heart transplant, Nishikiyama visits a doctor, who tells him that he needs 30 million yen to pay for it. Nishikiyama tells Matsushige to get the money for him by any means, prompting him to shake down stores in the Kazama family territory. Osamu Kashiwagi (Shunsuke Sakuya), the Kazama Family captain, violently disciplines Nishikiyama, then forgives him but tells him that Kiryu would be morally better as a leader. Nishikiyama is then fully convinced that the entire Kazama Family hates him after Futoshi Shimano (Naomi Kusumi) accuses Kazama of deliberately giving Nishikiyama men he cannot control, and that Nishikiyama should learn to care for himself instead of Kiryu. Eventually, Nishikiyama learns from Matsushige that the doctor was a fraud who had already had the 30 million yen from the beginning. Nishikiyama rushes to confront him, but discovers that he has run away. Yuko dies, and Nishikiyama prepares to commit seppuku, but is interrupted by Matsushige. Finally fed up with the disrespect and harassment, Nishikiyama stabs him and confesses to Dojima's murder before using the blood to slick back his hair, becoming the changed man Kiryu would encounter during the main story. Majima is reintroduced as a sadomasochistic yakuza who is at odds with Kiryu for not wanting to fight him. Despite this, Majima is fascinated by Kiryu's stoic strength and considers him to be the perfect opponent. When Kiryu is released from prison, Majima is disappointed by his combat skills going rusty and arranges a series of elaborate and bizarre scenarios to manipulate him into fighting and thus make him stronger. Despite the fights, Majima collaborates with Kiryu to defeat Dojima Family loyalists and even confesses to him that he does not care about avenging Shimano's death. Once Kiryu regains his combat abilities, Majima challenges him to one final fight, which he ultimately loses. However, Majima finds joy in fighting Kiryu and promises to keep challenging him for fun. ==Development==

Series writer Masayoshi Yokoyama stated that Sega had plans to develop Kiwami in 2015, with the company wishing gamers to enjoy the first Yakuza game in a more modern quality. However, they were busy during that time making the game Yakuza 0. Positive feedback to the prequel led to the making of Kiwami. The franchise's 10th anniversary and the engine used for Yakuza 0 also provided help, according to Yokoyama. The gameplay was made to be as friendly as possible to newcomers, with them being options to save the game's progress whenever they wanted. There were ideas in regards to changing the cast and recordings of the original games, but the staff felt it would not be an appealing remake if there were so many changes. The plot was further explored to focus on the depths of characters who did not have many appearances in the original game. Due to Goro Majima's popularity, he was made to clash with Kiryu often during sidequests. Majima's characterization was influenced by previous games to keep him motivated with the idea of strength following the events of Yakuza 0 which further focused on him. A steelbook edition of the game was released as part of the Western launch. A version for Windows was released on February 19, 2019. for Amazon Luna on December 22, 2022, On 24 September 2025, SEGA and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio announced an enhanced port of Yakuza Kiwami for Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam, with the latter platform as an update (which also adds Traditional Chinese and Korean, which were originally available on the Microsoft Store release). The new version adds expanded language support (plus a new language to the series), including French, German, Italian, Spanish, Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, and Simplified Chinese. It was released on November 13, 2025, for Nintendo Switch 2 and on December 8, 2025, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. ==Reception==

Yakuza Kiwami holds an average of 80 out of 100 on Metacritic indicating "generally favorable reviews". While not finding the remake as appealing as other titles, Destructoid found the game overall enjoyable, however, they criticized the boss fights because of their health regenerating during combat as well their style recycled from the fighting system of Yakuza 0. Both RPGFan and PC Invasion described Kiwami as an enjoyable starting point for newcomers to the series despite its issues. Vandal felt that the port was well executed and faithful to the original PlayStation 4 game, but lamented that its text was only in English. The game was nominated for Game, Classic Revival at the National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers Awards. Sales The PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 versions were the top two best-selling games in Japan during their release week, selling 103,256 copies for PlayStation 4 and 60,427 for PlayStation 3. Sega's Chief creative officer Toshihiro Nagoshi stated that the western preorders for Yakuza Kiwami were generally good for the series. As of June 28, 2018, Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami were relaunched as PlayStation Hits. The Windows version of Kiwami was among the best-selling new releases of the month on Steam. Masayoshi Yokoyama stated that the sales of the game on Switch exceeded far beyond their expectations. ==Sequel==

Yakuza Kiwami 2, a remake of Yakuza 2 in the same style as Yakuza Kiwami, was originally released for PlayStation 4 on December 7, 2017, in Japan, and worldwide on August 28, 2018. The Windows version was released on May 9, 2019, and the Xbox One version was released on July 30, 2020. ==Notes==