Where to start with the Yakuza series

For almost a decade and a half, the Yakuza The franchise was almost exclusive to Sony’s PlayStation consoles. In addition to a remastering of the Wii U only in Japan for the first two games, each entry or spinoff of the main line was launched exclusively on the PlayStation 2, PSP, PS3 or PS4.

Then Microsoft appeared. Together with Kingdom Hearts and Final fantasy, Yakuza slowly became a flagship Japanese series for Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass service. It started less than a year ago with the addition of Yakuza 0, and starting this week you can play almost all the main lines Yakuza game on the Game Pass.

Couple that with the fact that the latest generation version of Yakuza: like a dragon it is still exclusive to Xbox series consoles, with a PS5 version scheduled to arrive by March, and the unlikely conclusion is clear: Xbox – including the PC branch of the ecosystem – is now the best and easiest way to enter the series.

What has changed this week has been the addition of three new main lines Yakuza games. Remastered versions of Yakuza 3, 4and 5 are all now on Game Pass for Xbox and PC after getting a packaged PS4 release in 2019. (You can also buy the trio for $ 39.99.) These games were originally released on PS3, which means otherwise modern systems would not be playable through backward compatibility.

These doors are not particularly impressive on a technical level. Like most others Yakuza games on the Xbox, they run at 1080p and 60fps with few apparent benefits for the most powerful Xbox consoles. But honestly, given the aged material, this is perfectly normal.

What matters is that you can play almost the entire main line Yakuza series for the price of a Game Pass subscription. And I definitely think you should do that, because this series is incredibly good. There’s really nothing like the way Yakuza combines brutal violence, silly comedy and incredible pathos in the context of a police drama action RPG.

Without spoiling anything, here’s how I recommend getting into it:

• Start with Yakuza 0. Typically, you would like to play the first game in a series before addressing its precedent, but Yakuza is different. 0 is set decades before Yakuzain Japan in the 1980s of the bubble, and is widely considered one of the best in the series. It’s the perfect place to start and will tell you everything you need to know about what’s to come.
• Next play Yakuza Kiwami. This is a complete remake of the original Yakuza, which was released for the PS2 in 2005. Kiwami left shortly after 0 and it’s technically very similar, with a lot of narrative callbacks for the prequel, and that’s why it makes sense to play 0 first.
• Next, Yakuza Kiwami 2. To like Kiwami, this is a remake of a 2006 PS2 game Yakuza 2. But it moves to the Dragon Engine of the PS4 era, first seen in Yakuza 6, and it’s a much bigger and more accomplished game than Kiwami.
• Now play Yakuza 3, 4and 5. At this point, I suppose you are quite interested in the series, so the prospect of three direct PS3 remasterizations will not seem daunting at all. I think 4 it’s the best of those three games, but you’ll want to go through them all.
• Wait for Yakuza 6: The Song of Life to come to the Game Pass. It won’t be a very long wait – it will happen on March 25th. Or you can just play it on a PS4 before that. But make sure you play it anyway, because it’s wonderful.
• Now it’s time to Yakuza: like a dragon. Also known as Yakuza 7 in Japan, I really think you could start with this one too if you really wanted to play the newest game. It’s very different from the others, with a whole new cast and turn-based battle system, and now it’s better on the Xbox Series X. . It is also not on the Game Pass – you will have to purchase it separately. And, as a final warning, it is two or three times longer than most other games. (But it’s worth!)

You may also want to play Judgment, which is a good spinoff set in the Yakuza Cinematic universe, but it is not important for the general story and is still only on PS4. I would fit in later 6 if you get the chance.

The other Yakuza spinoffs really are not worth worrying about. There is Kenzan and Ishin, two separate games from the samurai era that were never localized to English. That was also the case for the exclusive PSP Kurohyo and its sequence. Meanwhile Dead Souls, a zombie shooter for PS3 that takes place on the streets of Tokyo, was launched in the west, you better pretend it never happened.

I have played the Yakuza series from day one on PS2, but at that time I never imagined it would be so expansive or accessible. I would recommend these games to anyone, and the entry barrier is now so low for anyone with an Xbox or PC and plenty of free time available. If you haven’t joined the series yet, it may be the best reason to sign up for the Game Pass.