Yakuza fans are going through it right now. Not only is the Yakuza Kiwami 3 remake apparently a dud, but through cutting quests, retconning old story beats, and doubling down on hiring an actor who has openly admitted to sexually assaulting a woman in 2019, the game has put a bad taste in fans’ mouths that has soured them on the long-running crime drama series. Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio had accrued heaps of goodwill in recent years, with even the worst Yakuza or Like a Dragon game still serving as a crowdpleaser for longtime fans, but the choices made around this remake are burning through that fondness fast. For many of those fans, this remake is a collection of errors and bad decisions, becoming a stain on the series’ legacy before it’s even out.
The pushback began long before reviews dropped and details about the changes Yakuza Kiwami 3 makes to the original game started spreading online. The #RemoveKagawa movement has been pushing for months to get RGG Studio to remove Teruyuki Kagawa, the aforementioned actor who admitted to sexual misconduct, from the game’s cast. Kagawa plays antagonist Goh Hamazaki, and not only does he voice the character in Japanese, but Hamazaki’s appearance has been altered in the remake to resemble the actor, making him unrecognizable from his original appearance in the original Yakuza 3 and 4. So even if you played Kiwami 3 in a different language, you’d still have to see him every time Goh is on screen.
The details of Kagawa’s assault have been reported extensively in Japan, and there’s even a photo of the actor circulating from the incident showing him pulling a woman’s hair with a smile on his face. So if you want to read about the specifics, you can click this link but here’s your trigger warning for sexual assault. Game director Ryosuke Horii tried to justify his casting in an interview with GAME Watch (translated by IGN) in January by saying he would be a believable creep.
“Hamazaki is a sleazy, persistent, and militant yakuza, right? Since he isn’t an explosive character like Kanda, when we tried to think of someone who makes you go, ‘This guy’s a creep,’ naturally it was Kagawa—that was the main factor,” Horii said. “Kagawa’s acting is fun to watch. Even when he’s chopping a pig’s feet off with a chef’s knife, it has a slimy feel. That feeling permeates his performance, so it brings a freshness to the scene and made it feel really fun.”
…All right. Now that the game is imminent, more details about cut and altered content are spreading, and it’s making the whole thing feel worse. The remake cuts around 88 substories from the original game, leaving it with a measly 31. The sheer breadth of side quests and worldbuilding that didn’t make it to the remake means that a lot of Yakuza 3’s heart and soul has been ripped out of the game, including a notable quest in which protagonist Kazuma Kiryu meets a transgender woman and becomes sympathetic to her difficult life.
https://t.co/HxcyjoolZY pic.twitter.com/bFrVK75K29
— 🅇🄸🄽🄽🄸🄴🐈⬛ (@Xingu1arity_) February 9, 2026
“Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties is a sad microcosm of the state of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio: a developer spinning its wheels, no longer caring for quality, content to chew up old assets and discard what made the original special in order to spit out a yearly release that cashes in on love for what the series used to be,” Ashley Schofield writes in her review at VGC.
Other early reviewers have pointed out that, because Sega and RGG will be delisting the original Yakuza 3, Kiwami 3 is basically primed to become the default version of the game most people play moving forward, and given how much has been changed or removed, that’s a travesty, even if Yakuza 3 is widely regarded as one of the series’ weaker entries. If you were waiting on Kiwami 3 to play this game, it might be worth grabbing the original remaster before it’s too late.
“Kiwami 3 is constantly at odds with itself. Some of the areas of the original have been improved, but it’s hard not to feel like you’re experiencing a completely different game in both style and intent,” Diego Argüello writes at GameSpot. “Remakes aren’t remasters, and there’s always a chance of the developers being bold with the source material to the point of coming up with a polarizing work. Kiwami 3, however, cements itself as a drastic turn for the series, showing that these remakes can also reshape the existing stories. Considering the current version of Yakuza 3 will be delisted from stores and remain available only as part of a $120 bundle, Kiwami 3 essentially takes its place and makes a heavier impact on the series’ legacy.”
But what about the new stuff? Surely there must be something gained in all this carnage? Well, Kiwami 3’s Dark Ties side story is its own bag of worms. It stars antagonist Yoshitaka Mine and takes place before the game proper. But the addition to Mine’s story retcons his tragic sacrifice from 17 years ago, and the explanation is comical, undermining the character’s whole deal.
Heres the mine ending btw i dont give a fuck i hope this series gets canned. pic.twitter.com/nyFsRamCst
— Avito (@Avito502) February 9, 2026
What a clusterfuck. Over the past decade or so, Yakuza / Like a Dragon had become a widely beloved and celebrated series and a staple of Sega’s output, but as it has become an annualized franchise, it’s increasingly felt like it’s running in circles, and it seems that fixing what isn’t broken so you can have another game out in 2026 may have been what finally made it fall on its face. Yakuza Kiwami 3 is coming to PC, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PS4, and PS5 on Thursday, February 12.
English (US) ·