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How Like a Dragon has grown through parallel development and convenience stores

RGG Studio's Ryosuke Horii and Eiji Hamatsu offer GDC attendees some insight into Like a Dragon's quick development cycles.

Ozzie Mejia

March 24, 2025 1:00 PM

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Among the most fascinating aspects of the Like a Dragon/Yakuza series has been RGG Studio's ability to craft such immersive experiences with such short turnaround times. Look at the sheer amount of main story and side content in last year's Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth and this year's Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. These are both hefty games packed with activities, each released roughly a year apart from each other. They're also noticeably distinct from one another, but also critical darlings for what they were able to accomplish. A lot has to go right for a developer like RGG to hit this kind of groove and there's no real "secret" for this level of success. With that said, Chief Director Ryosuke Horii and Design Manager Eiji Hamatsu both came to this year's Game Developers Conference to share some insight into the team's relatively quick development cycles and why it isn't always possible for a studio to replicate their formula.

Horii began his talk with his belief that good game design stems from a strong relationship between narrative teams and scenario teams, allowing story and gameplay instance design to be more of a collaborative effort. He then discusses the standard flow of game development, which usually unfolds in the order of story production, character production, motion capture, voice recording, and scene editing before applying final polish. However, with RGG having so many Yakuza/Like a Dragon games under its belt, it has allowed the team to adopt an approach of simultaneous parallel development. This means that separate groups of the development team can complete two of these steps (story and character production, voice recording and motion capture) simultaneously while maintaining communication with one another. It's one of the RGG methods that helps save a lot of time, but it's only something can be done by a studio that has worked together for so many years across numerous completed projects.

"Simultaneous parallel development is a production method that we have been using for a very long time," Horii explained. "The term refers to having the different sections or roles of a team progressing work on a project at the same time in order to complete it rapidly... Of course, this is not a technique that can be imitated easily. This is development expertise that we have accumulated over the years through releasing dozens of titles. A high level of autonomy and understanding in each production section and a shared vision of the final product is essential for this approach to succeed. Unlike standard game development in which teams move on to the next portion only after one part is complete, directing simultaneous parallel development requires decision-making that can then declare, 'Ok, this team's section is good to go,' before anything is actually completed, making difficulty quite high. The slightest wrong decision can bring confusion and the risk of not finishing that portion of the game."

RGG further cemented its development approach through an unconventional setting: convenience stores. Hamatsu talked about the series' convenience stores, which first debuted in Yakuza 6, and how they've helped with Like a Dragon's continued growth. Specifically, they proved to be an ideal testing ground for RGG's parallel development approach.

"It was around this time that we were renewing our engine from our old one to the new Dragon Engine and reviewing all of our production flows and game systems," Hamatsu recalled. "However, if too much time was spent on these tests, we would not be able to finish development in the short period of time we had. So we thought ahead from a very early stage of the project and started production on the convenience store locations, which had a large number of production challenges surrounding them very early. As the person responsible for background production at that time, I also set the schedule to implement this in time for the demo version of Yakuza 6. By taking this approach, we were able to tackle multiple challenges at once, like testing next-generation graphics, setting benchmarks, and ensuring production roles were understood within the team and resolve those at an early stage."

One thing that's worth noting is that both Horii and Hamatsu point to Like a Dragon's penchant for recycling settings. Some gaming aficionados will look down on the idea of reusing assets, but RGG reuses classic settings like Kamurocho or (more recently) Hawaii to create a sense of continuity and to create a sense of homecoming.

"Reusing the same location in a different game may make players go, 'Oh, this place again,' but in Like a Dragon, players can feel a sense of comfort when they see Kamurocho, similar to visiting your hometown after a long time away," Horii added. "I believe this is the result of many years of continuously creating games and constantly polishing our locations while reusing them over installments. Having this kind of foundation in place also allows for efficient use of resources."

Horii added that this has allowed the team to build a wealth of assets for future use, which further feeds into the faster and lower-cost Like a Dragon development cycle. It also allows the team to focus more on making newer locations, settings, and story scenarios feel special. He cited the Castle area from Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name and the islands from the more recent Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii as exciting new features that the team could focus on designing, as well as marketing to the series' fanbase.

"Because Like a Dragon has many past elements that can be reutilized, new features that we put a lot of energy into must embody the concept and core elements of the game," Hamatsu said. "For our studio, reuse is not just a means of reducing costs but has also become an effective step in identifying the necessary elements for the next game."

Horii and Hamatsu concluded their talk by dispelling the notion that reusing assets is a negative in game development. In fact, they spoke to the practice's benefits, allowing RGG Studio to focus more time on testing new gameplay ideas while also creating a sense of familiarity for players. All of that contributes to what's ultimately a shorter development cycle, which makes it possible for massive experiences like Infinite Wealth and Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii to be completed and polished just one year apart.

For more on the Like a Dragon series, why not read up on our reviews of Infinite Wealth and Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii? For more stories from this year's Game Developers Conference, be sure to catch up with our GDC 2025 topic page.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?