Like a Dragon Gaiden - Secret Agent Combat

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Gameinformer talked with chief producer Hiroyuki Sakamoto about the combat styles in Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name:

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How RGG Made Like A Dragon Gaiden's New Secret Agent Combat

Earlier this month, developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio released its second - and not to mention best - game of 2023, the hilariously longly titled Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name. One of the most notable features is how RGG rethought its classic brawler combat. Protagonist Kazuma Kiryu now has two fighting stances, Yakuza and Agent, the latter of which comes with a host of new secret-agent tools, such as an exploding cigarette, a Spider-Man-like cable he can use to whip enemies around, and so on.

We recently had a chat with RGG series chief producer Hiroyuki Sakamoto - who we spoke with last year about the future of the studio - to learn how Gaiden's new combat together, maintaining the series' identity despite how much has changed over the years, and why RGG doesn't look to other games for inspiration.

This interview has been lightly edited for brevity.

GAME INFORMER: Can you walk me through the early conversations about expanding Kiryu's fighting styles with the Agent stance?

Hiroyuki Sakamoto: We had discussed two points: what gadgets to use and whether they could be put together in such a way that they could be considered "a style."

First of all, this time, Kiryu is in the position of an agent, so we decided from the early stages of development that we wanted to include something different from the yakuza styles of the past. Since our main focus has been on full-contact fighting battles, we decided to include a battle style that had never been seen before. We were aiming for something tricky and strategic, not just button-mashing combos.

At first, the story was developed independently of each other, with the story being the story and the battles being the battles. As development progressed to a certain extent, we began to link the gadget settings to the special skills of the Daidoji faction. Therefore, the enemy agents of the Daidoji faction also began to use their own gadgets, thus tying the storyline and the battles together.

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