The Yakuza Remastered Collection announced – Yakuza 3 out now for PS4 [Updated]

Update: The Yakuza Remastered Collection has now been confirmed! And it’s out now! Well… with a catch.

The Yakuza Remastered Collection will bring Yakuza 3, Yakuza 4 and Yakuza 5 to PlayStation 4 in the West for the first time and you can start playing it almost right away, as Yakuza 3 is out right now for the console… but you’ll have to wait for the rest of the trilogy.

The Collection’s three remastered games will be doled out one at a time over the coming months, starting with Yakuza 3 Remastered today, with Yakuza 4 to follow on 29th October and Yakuza 5 coming on 11th February. To start with, you’ll only be able to buy them in the Remastered Collection digitally, but with the completion of the PS3 trilogy’s port to the current gen, they’ll be getting individual digital releases as well.

For lovers of being able to hold things in your hands, Sega will also then be giving the collection a physical release alongside Yakuza 5’s February release. This will feature two discs, the first with Yakuza 3 and 4 on it and Yakuza 5 on the other. This will be the first time that Yakuza 5 has been available physically in the West, and as such there’s bound to be a bit of a hullabaloo in the Yakuza fanbase. For those diehard fans, the physical collection will also come with a PlayStation 3 style Blu-Ray case, so that you can pop the Yakuza 5 disc in there and give it pride of place alongside your PS3 copies of 3 and 4 on your shelves.

We got to go hands on with Yakuza 3 at Gamescom today, and it sure is Yakuza 3! This is a straight up remaster of the PS3 game, jumping up to 1080p60 from 720p30, as opposed to a wholesale remake as we saw with Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza Kiwami 2. However, that also feels quite appropriate for this game. While it means the game will miss out on the refinements of the Kiwami games, the combat here being rock hard as enemies are far too competent at blocking, and with texture work that feels like an early PS3 game, it’s still impressive how many characters populate the streets and the facial modelling of Kaz and all the other main characters is top notch.

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The remastered versions on Yakuza 3, 4 and 5 have been out in Japan for a while now with Yakuza 5 being released in June this year, but so far Sega have remained quiet about the games heading West.

It appears that they are coming to our shores, or at least those of our North American chums, as the The Yakuza Remaster Collection has just been spotted by numerous people on the US side of the PlayStation Store.

The Yakuza Remaster Collection appears on PlayStation Store US! pic.twitter.com/VVo60ejesa

— Andrew Marmo (@the_marmolade) August 20, 2019

Yakuza 3 launched on the PlayStation 3 way back in 2009 and we gave it a whopping 9/10 in our review, with the fourth game following in 2011 and the fifth in Japan in 2012, but that game took another three years to head West.

In other Yakuza news it looks like a new game may be released as early as next month in Japan, with a reveal on August 29th.

Sega:

The next "Ryu ga Gotoku Series Installment," i.e. new Yakuza game, could be out as soon as September if I'm reading this reporting correctly.

The studio previously announced it would be revealed on August 29, so best guess is it's out in the last quarter of calendar 2019. pic.twitter.com/rQGf5nMZKh

— Dom (@DomsPlaying) July 30, 2019

One game in the series that has yet to reach our shores is Yakuza Kenzan, a game launched exclusively in Japan on the PlayStation 3 back in 2008. Set during the Edo period in 1605 it followed the story of famed swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, and series producer, Daisuke Sato was asked if he thought the game might get a “Kiwami” style remake.

Personally, Yakuza: Kenzan is quite suitable to get a ‘Kiwami’ makeover. Kenzan was the first Yakuza game on the PlayStation 3, and only released in Japan. A lot of Western players mentioned that they want to play this game in English, and Asian players also want the game to release in Chinese. And because Kenzan was an early PS3 game, if it were to receive a simple HD remaster it would feel like it’s missing something, so in my opinion a ‘Kiwami’ version would be better.

Another game that Sega may like to take West is Yakuza Ishin, another Japan-only release which came to both the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4.

We’re trying to find out the price and release date for The Yakuza Remaster Collection and will report back if we find anymore details if Sega decided to announce anything officially. Maybe check about around 6pm? Just a random thought, just a time picked out totally at random and absolutely nothing to do with an embargo or anything.

Source: Twitter