Kiryu’s Return Was Planned Since the End of Yakuza 6, Says Like a Dragon Series Producer

In an interview with IGN, Like a Dragon series producer Hiroyuki Sakamoto stated that the return of Kiryu was always intended. For those unaware, the character had a pretty clear seeming send-off at the end of Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, leading fans to believe that we’d be moving on from him entirely.

However, Sakamoto’s comments say otherwise. You can view his full quoted statements via IGN below:

“When we said goodbye to [Kazuma Kiryu], we were still planning to have him appear as a double protagonist for [Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth]. So, this has been kind of a long time something that we’ve been thinking about.

So, also in [Yakuza: Like a Dragon], Kazuma kind of appeared as a sort of backup character, and a lot of people who played [Yakuza: Like a Dragon] but weren’t familiar with the previous games in the series are probably still wondering, ‘Who is this character and what’s his role?’ within the series.

“So, [Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name] was kind of invented as a spinoff, a Gaiden, but what we really wanted to do with it was talk about what sort of life Kazuma had from the end of [Yakuza 6] to the events in [Infinite Wealth]. So, what he was doing in the background and what he was up to. This is the goal for this whole game.”