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While it seems unlikely we will ever get official confirmation out of NetEase, it does indeed appear Gang of Dragon, from Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi and his new development studio, has been quietly cancelled.
Back in March, it was reported publisher NetEase was planning to pull its funding of Nagoshi Studio, leaving the team in a scramble to secure funds from elsewhere. It was said another ¥7 billion (~$44 million) would be needed to finish the project, and with NetEase no longer willing to provide the cash, Nagoshi Studio would stop receiving its funding in May.
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Nothing surrounding the closure of Nagoshi Studio or the cancellation of Gang of Dragon has been made public yet, but now there's mounting evidence that both these things have come to pass.
On top of the developer's YouTube channel disappearing, Nagoshi will appear in this week's issue of Famitsu without any affiliation whatsoever to the new studio he founded or Gang of Dragon. He's done an interview with the magazine alongside many other Japanese creators, and he's the only one on the page without his company or history listed.
Further, Daisuke Sato, who was serving as the studio director of Nagoshi Studio, now lists himself as "ex-Nagoshi Studio" on social media.
Unfortunately, everything now points to this project never seeing the light of day.
The initial pitch for Gang of Dragon, even if it basically was a Yakuza game in all but name, was the following: "Shin Ji-seong — portrayed by renowned Asian actor Ma Dong-seok — is a high-ranking member of a Korean crime syndicate based in Kabukicho. As he explores the streets of Shinjuku, Shin becomes entangled in underworld conflicts and forges intense, human connections that push him to confront his own sense of purpose."
[source resetera.com]
Comments 20
Damn. One of the upcoming games I was genuinely looking forward to.
I hope it can be resurrected.
@dskatter Same it actually looked really good, hope he is able to find a way.
That’s a damn shame
Damn, what a huge bummer. I was so looking forward to slapping gangsters silly as Don Lee 😞 It would've been like playing an unofficial "The Roundup" game, but with more violence! 😬
looked waaaaay more promising that stranger than heaven. unfortunately, inking a deal with netease was a terrible decision just as predicted. you can't just follow the money... as a producer, you need to do your homework and ensure you are working with people who actually give a damn about your project and won't pull the plug half way into development.
This is really sad because the game looks great 🥀
But i hope this news open the mind for people who truly believes it's all sunshine and rainbow for Asian devs / publishers and claim Western devs needs to learn from Asian devs.
The cold hard truth is all the same either Western or Asian devs. They have their own bad stuff going on in the background.
@No_Fs_Given nooo was that cancelled too?
Truly sad news. While I'm still willing to give Stranger Than Heaven a chance, I was honestly much more interested in Gang of Dragon then Sega's upcoming Yakuza prequel.
It looked pretty cool and it’s become increasingly clear that Yakuza will never return to the levels it was when Nagoshi was in charge, so it’s a shame we won’t have a serious competitor.
Really sad news as this was one of the most exciting new announcements of recent shows. Shame.
@Mio_Nakashima how on earth can people think this gens line up is sparse??? There’s more games coming out than ever before.
Sure if you look at individual studios the number of games has slowed down, but there are so many more studios putting out games.
In the past I could broadly keep up with most games I wanted to play each generation, now my backlog just grows and grows every month and I can’t even find time to play even all the award winning games I’m interested in.
Investors are exiting gaming quicker than they do crypto.
@Boxmonkey And honestly that is for the best.
Gutted. this looked great. please someone invest or bring it back!
Please Sony save it for me 😭
Man, this sucks. I thought the trailer looked crazy cool.
I echo the sentiment of the other comments, it's a damn shame that this happened as the game seemed interesting. From that small look alone it looked a lot more violent than Yakuza, and we do need something like that, since RGG doesn't kill anyone off anymore, the games just feel like they don't have any stakes anymore.
Really saddening to see stuff like this never see the light of day yet all the same old corporate slop still keeps being produced and getting nowhere.
It's a real shame as I'm sure the next game would've been much cheaper to develop as these games smartly reuse so many assets.
Wonder why Sega wouldn't be down for publishing this one....
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