With Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio set to give players the latest game in the Like a Dragon/Yakuza series, it’s an exciting time to be a Goro Majima fan. He plays center stage in the upcoming Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii and will be taking players on a swashbuckling pirate adventure through the islands around Hawaii. What does that mean? Recently, Sega and RGG Studio gave us a chance to find out and, simply put, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is delivering pirate gameplay that few other recent titles have been able to capture while also keeping the best of Yakuza’s action intact.
A fresh start for the Mad Dog
Anyone who knows Goro Majima knows he’s been an agent of chaos throughout the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series. He’s usually chasing Kiryu down trying to help him or get in a fight with him, or maybe a little of both, but this time he finds himself stranded in the islands around Hawaii with no recollection of who he is, what he was doing, or how he got there. A young lad by the name of Noah and his tiger friend (also named Goro) help Majima get back on his feet, and in the process, Goro decides to help them with the local ruffians. This ends up with Goro being made captain of his own pirate vessel and amassing a crew to go on a journey, get his memories back, and make things better for the people who helped him.
The demo we got to play let us take a deep dive into the pirate side of Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, and it feels as interesting and extensive as anything we’ve seen in a while. Once you get your ship, the Goromaru, you’re able to start venturing into the seas and taking on quests that will bring you to other islands, pirate hideouts, hidden treasures, and plenty more. We could even take the ship to Hawaii and the devs teased that much of the map from Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is available to explore here.
Perhaps more important is the sheer amount of customization you can do. The Goromaru can be decked out with collectible weapons on the starboard side, port side, and bow, with a variety featuring machine guns, cannons, and even laser beams, just to name a few. There are even status effect weapons that inflict frost, fire, poison, and more and can apply nasty effects to enemy ships. That’s not all. The preview also featured a vast number of crewmates to recruit to your ship. They each have different qualities they bring to your crew, such as bonuses for ship attacks or better stats in deck battles, but while some crew members will join you through the story, others have to be found or obtained through optional questing. You can even customize the look of the ship to look as cool or silly as you want it to be.
Goro Majima himself can also be heavily customized to look and play to your liking. There are tons of clothes to be found throughout Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii that can be applied to different outfits depending on what fighting style you’re using. However, there are also a wide range of rings in the game that can be equipped on any of Goro’s fingers (a total of ten equipped rings in all). Some allowed Goro to fight better in one style or another, others boosted stats like HP and attack, and still others could be worn in a matched set to provide stronger bonuses like resistance to status effects. All in all, the customization felt excellent, and it looks like players will have a lot of options to play the game their way.
Anchors aweigh!
All this customization is going into an interesting gameplay cycle for Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. Players will spend most of their time either on foot as Majima, doing quests, getting into fights, and gathering supplies and crewmates, or on the pirate ship engaging in travel across the seas, naval quests, and ship battles. In the former, players will have access to two combat styles, Sea Dog and Mad Dog. The first is your pirate-themed moveset in which Goro handles two cutlasses, a pistol, and a grappling hook for tricky fighting. Mad Dog focuses on Goro’s hand-to-hand prowess (though his trademark knife is still present). In both, players will brawl with opponents in classic Yakuza action, hitting them with everything and the kitchen sink as Goro puts anyone foolish enough to fight him in their place.
There’s a lot of reasons to use Goro's skills in combat as well. During our time, we saw bounty quests where we could make money hunting surly criminals, roving gangs wandering peaceful areas looking for a fight, and side quests and activities galore. Some of those side quests also included things like arcade machines (we saw a fully working Virtua Fighter 4), the return of Dragon Kart, karaoke, and plenty more.
On the pirate ship, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii opens up to a lot more activity. For one, there’s the pirate hideout Madlantis where we got to engage in contests across a variety of styles. The biggest deal was captain battles where you face off against other captains and their fleets in Madlantis to rise in the ranks. There are also battles with unique fleets that will challenge your ability to survive and win against increasingly difficult odds. Almost everything with the pirate ship had us maneuvering to get our best weapons on starboard, front, or port sides in range of enemy ships and gunning them down to the point where we could engage in deck battles.
Deck battles saw us taking our crew over to disabled ships to do battle with their crews and captains. This, too, was fun chaos. It’s generally a 20 vs 20 fracas where you and your crew face off against enemy captains and their own crew. This is where your recruited crew’s abilities all come into play, and making sure your composition is solid will matter. Other than the Madlantis trials and contests, you also use the ship to travel throughout the Hawaiian region, fighting patrolling ships, locating treasure, fishing, and more. It’s all quite a bit involved and satisfying on a level that it feels like we haven’t gotten in a pirate game in a while.
Set sail for adventure
Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii was an unexpected announcement to say the least, but following the initial surprise, everything about it feels like a good time. It’s not like we’ve had a lot of quality pirate adventures, so this game is shaping up to fill a particular void that other games have been unable to fill. It’s got a hefty dose of classic Yakuza action brawling and side activities, and the pirate gameplay is feeling as good as we’re probably going to get for a while. With that in mind, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is continuing to shape up to be an adventure worth engaging in, longtime fan of the Like a Dragon/Yakuza series or not.
This preview is based on an early PS5 version offered by the publisher. Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii comes to PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC on February 21, 2025.
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replyTJ Denzer posted a new article, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is a proper seafaring adventure
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This is where I was last week. Some features from this preview include getting to play and record pirate ship gameplay, on-foot combat, ship and character customization, and some of the side activities like Dragon Kart, in-game arcade games, and karaoke. Really excited to finally play the whole thing. This was a blast.
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