Yakuza: Like a Dragon will be out a few days earlier than expected

In a nice departure from the disappointment of game delays, the upcoming Yakuza: Like a Dragon will be out a few days earlier than expected—and we've got the next generation of Xbox consoles to thank for it.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon was originally set to arrive on November 13, but earlier this month Microsoft announced a November 10 launch date for the Xbox Series X and S consoles. That prompted Sega to bump the Yakuza launch date up a few days, across all platforms. (Though the PlayStation 5 version of the game is set to come out on March 2, 2021.)

The new Yakuza promises to be quite a bit different than previous games in the series, with turn-based combat and party members who will back you up in fights, RPG style. It's set in Yokohama rather than Tokyo, and features a new lead character, Ichiban Kasuga, who spends 18 years in prison covering for a murderer, and then ends up nearly murdered himself—by the people he was covering for, no less—when he finally gets out. No good deed, eh?

It sounds like a classic crime tale setup, but much of the game will apparently also involve turning around a failing confectionery business and going drinking with your friends. That's just how Yakuza rolls, I guess. 

It turns out that reports of a new Yakuza game announcement that was expected to take place on Sunday were incorrect—as reported by Gematsu, the Tokyo Game Show co-host who shared the information said the next day that she misunderstood what Sega was actually planning—but on the upside, work has begun on a new Yakuza live-action film.