Yakuza 6: The Song of Life was released in Japan in December but now Sega has confirmed that it will be available worldwide in March 2018. The sequel will be the second title in the series to be developed for the PlayStation 4, following the prequel that made it to the west earlier this year.
The Yakuza saga began in 2005 when the first game in the series was released for the PlayStation 2. Each main-story game has featured gangster Kazuma Kiryu as the protagonist, chronicling his ever-evolving role in the brutal and deadly Tojo clan.
At this point, western Yakuza fans are used to having to wait a while in order to play the latest installment in the franchise. It is not at all uncommon for it to take more than a year for each new game to be released outside of Japan.
Despite looking like action games on the surface, Yakuza titles are closer to the RPG genre. There is a huge amount of dialogue to flesh out the ongoing storyline and it takes a long time to localize it properly, doing justice to the narrative while maintaining the franchise’s unique tone.
Yakuza 6 maintains the series’ penchant for wearing its quirky sense of humor on its sleeve, contrasting the hard-hitting combat that defines its main campaign with bizarre side activities like managing a cat cafe. It is a bit of a peculiar mix, but fans have come to expect nothing less from each new installment’s open world.
Sega also confirmed that Yakuza 6 will receive a limited edition game packed with collectible items when it launches worldwide. Strangely enough, it is called the After Hours Premium Edition and is themed around recreational drinking, featuring two bar glasses, two coasters, two ice stones, a collectible outer box, and the game itself. The limited edition will retail for $90, according to a report from Gamespot.
Even the standard edition of the game comes with an added bonus, as pre-orders and copies purchased at launch will be packed with a hardcover art book.
Yakuza 6: The Song of Life is scheduled to launch exclusively for the PlayStation 4 on March 20, 2018.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.