Yakuza Producer Wants to Bring Yakuza Kenzan and Yakuza Ishin to The West; But Circumstances Are Complicated

Yakuza series producer, Daisuke Sato, was recently interviewed by the German gaming website, JPGAMES. This interview is mostly about the series’ growth in the global market outside of Japan and the types of decisions to reach this point.

However, one particularly noteworthy response came from the interviewer asking about Yakuza Ishin and Yakuza Kenzan getting localized releases. You can read this portion of the interview below:

JPGAMES: Fans still hope that “Ishin” and “Kenzan” will be localized. Under what circumstances would you consider localization?

Sato: Personally, I would like to see these titles localized so that Western fans can enjoy them. In the past, we prioritized trying to regain a foothold in the west with Yakuza 0. Time quickly flew by without a good time to publish these titles. In my opinion, the action in “Ishin” and “Kenzan” is some of the best in the series. So I would like to localize the titles if there is a chance. However, they are already seven years old. So it would take additional work to produce remakes instead of simple ports. That makes the decision a little more complicated.

This by no means confirms localized releases of either of the titles since the development team is in a tight spot deciding between simply porting these older titles or doing full-on remakes, which would require considerable effort and manpower. Either way, hopefully, both Yakuza Ishin and Yakuza Kenzan find their way to western markets soon, seeing as the series’ growth has more than shown the demand for these games.

Thanks to The Tojo Dojo for sourcing this information.