Yakuza / Like a Dragon Tech Chief Finally Wants to Make a Dragon Engine for ‘High-Spec Consoles’

The technical director of Yakuza / Like a Dragon developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has said he wants to make a new Dragon Engine after eight years and 10 games in the current one.

Yutaka Ito told Automaton he’d like to build a new game engine focusing on “high-spec” consoles, but made clear this wasn’t an official decision by RGG Studio just yet.

“The Like a Dragon series has evolved technologically with each title, but at the core of the series is the Dragon Engine that was developed for Yakuza 6,” Ito said. “In this sense, personally, I’d like to try to make a new Dragon Engine specialized for high-spec consoles, and with it, to develop a new action-adventure game. This is just what I personally feel, so it has nothing to do with the studio’s actual plans.”

Ito obviously has some influence as technical director of RGG Studio but it’s unclear if fans’ hopes for an upgraded engine will emerge anytime soon. The Dragon Engine has so far been used to create Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, Yakuza Kiwami 2, First of the North Star: Lost Paradise, Judgement, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Lost Judgement, Like a Dragon: Ishin, Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, and the upcoming Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii.

RGG Studio is known for its prompt releases, and this list is somehow just a fraction of its overall output as in the same time it’s also released Yakuza 3, 4, and 5 Remastered, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD, Judgement Remastered, Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania, and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble.

But releasing so many games has some drawbacks, as while each Yakuza game has reviewed well, fans have complained about animations and assets that get reused over multiple entries. It’s for reasons such as these that fans are eager for a new engine, not to mention the technological leap that would potentially come with leaving the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One generation behind.

Ito added to this somewhat, saying that while RGG Studio has found ways to squeeze more life out of the Dragon Engine with each entry, it’s also being held back by keeping its games on the previous console generation.

“We would like to avoid limiting ourselves because of performance as much as possible, but not everyone plays the Like a Dragon series on higher-end consoles, so we would like to figure out a future plan on this at some point,” he said.

This again stops short of confirming a new engine being in development at RGG Studio, and as mentioned it’s already revealed its next game as Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii as another Dragon Engine entry.

This is just a spin-off, however, leaving fans with a little hope that the next mainline game, Like a Dragon 9, will perhaps make that technological jump. RGG Studio head Masayoshi Yokoyama even said in 2022 that the Dragon Engine is “a bit old.”

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.