Yakuza Kiwami Coming in August, Has a Story Trailer

Yakuza Kiwami is the remastered version of the game that kickstarted the famous open world crime series. It’s coming out on Playstation 4 on August 29th, and now it has a story trailer, explaining the finer details of the plot and letting us get to know the central characters.

So, the gist of it is: Kazuma Kiryu takes the fall for a murder he didn’t commit, in order to protect a friend. He goes to jail and serves 10 years. Once he’s out, he discovers a bunch of money has been stolen from his clan, and everyone’s real trigger happy about it. In the midst of it, an orphan girl looking for her mother appears, and her pendant seems to be the key to finding the money. Kazuma decides to protect the girl, partly because he’s a big softie underneath the tough exterior, partly to spite everyone out to get her. What follows is a lot of bone crunching, grunting, shouting and people lying limply on the floor.

The remaster is going to feature new story bits, more activities and side quests, as well as an overhauled combat system. The dialogue has also been re-recorded, which is frankly neither here nor there – it might turn out great, but it also might be inferior to the original. Still, it’s good that they aren’t just re-selling the original with spruced-up graphics. If it doesn’t work out, you can always go back to playing the original on Playstation 2. At this point, it might even be cheaper to buy a PS2 and the original than the remaster alone.

Yakuza Kiwami will be released in North America on August 29th. Europe and the rest of the non-Japanese world still aren’t being mentioned, but hopefully they won’t be far behind. The game will be released both physically and digitally, and it’s going to be sold for $30.