Like a Dragon Gaiden Only Took Six Months to Make

Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name only took Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio six months to make.

At the Tokyo Game Show 2023, Automaton sat down with Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio directors Masayoshi Yokoyama and Hiroyuki Sakamoto, asking them about the inner workings of the two games. The outlet questioned the directors about managing the projects together and what things they were careful of during this process. Yokoyama clarified there wasn’t “a huge difference between Like a Dragon Gaiden and Like a Dragon 8.”

“In a sense, Like a Dragon Gaiden was derived from Like a Dragon 8,” Yokoyama said. “We could have just told of Kiryu’s past through a thirty-minute interlude as part of Like a Dragon 8, but we decided it would be a lot more interesting as a game of its own, which is how the project came to be.”

Even though Like a Dragon Gaiden became its own thing instead of DLC, the team still used “the same engine” as Like a Dragon 8, saving the developer from making everything from scratch. “In the end, it took us about half a year to make it,” Yokoyama concluded.

Related: Like a Dragon Gaiden Won’t Have an English Dub at Launch

“We didn’t have a physical edition in mind from the start at all,” Sakamoto added. “So making all the adjustments for switching over was quite tough.”

Despite how challenging the switch was, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio poured attention into both projects, from recording sessions with voice actors to adding more content to flesh them out, seemingly well based on their comments. Only time will tell just how successful their management translates to the playing experience when the titles launch.