Like a Dragon Gaiden took only six months to make, originally planned as DLC

Like a Dragon developer RGG Studio has revealed Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name was created in half a year, as it was originally conceived as DLC for the next main entry to the series, Infinite Wealth.

Gaiden is a shorter spin-off to the longer campaigns of the main Like a Dragon games, and sees gameplay return to the action brawling roots of the series.

In a new interview with Automaton, studio director Masayoshi Yokoyama and chief producer Hiroyuki Sakamoto said Gaiden was made in half a year, with the former seemingly making a slight jest at Bayonetta creator Hideki Kamiya.

With the release of Infinite Wealth on 26th January 2024, the Like a Dragon series will have had three releases in the span of a year. The developers revealed there was “one team for the most part” working on all three games at the same time. Yokoyama admitted the team would often get confused about which particular game they were working on for a particular day.

Gaiden was initially meant to be a DLC for Infinite Wealth, Yokoyama also revealed. “We could have just told of Kiryu’s past through a 30-minute interlude as part of [Infinite Wealth],” he stated, “but we decided it would be a lot more interesting as a game of its own”. This was first intended as a DLC, but the team thought it was “engaging” enough to be a fully fledged game. Gaiden uses the same engine, which helped to speed up development Yokoyama added. “In the end, it took us about half a year to make it.”

Later in the interview, Yokoyama was asked about how RGG Studio deals with feedback from social media and Like a Dragon’s larger global recognition. “I don’t shut [the opinions people post on social media] out,” Yokoyama said. “I look at all of them and then go yeah, and?”

“I have zero people on my block list, you know,” he added, which has been picked up on as a comment towards Hideki Kamiya, who very famously blocked people on Twitter. The Wonderful 101 Remastered was PlatinumGames’ first self-published project, and one of its Kickstarter rewards for backers was a tweet from Kamiya, before he then blocked them forever.

There’s not long until fans can get their hands on Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, which is out on 8th November for PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.