Yakuza Wars trademarked by SEGA

A potential game title

Marco Wutz | Aug 5, 2024

SEGA

It looks like SEGA has filed a trademark for “Yakuza Wars” in Japan (via Gematsu) in late July 2024. There is currently no announced SEGA game with Yakuza Wars in any part of its name, though of course fans believe the trademark to be connected to the Like a Dragon franchise.

The Like a Dragon series was originally known as the Yakuza series, though SEGA initiated a big rebranding of the franchise with 2019’s Yakuza: Like a Dragon. The old name was subsequently dropped with 2023’s Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, the developer of the series, has already announced that it would hold a series of auditions to find the cast for the next game, so it’s no secret that another entry into the Like a Dragon series is in development.

Fans now think that the next game’s title could be Like a Dragon: Yakuza Wars based on the filed trademark. However, the counter argument is that SEGA and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio just spent a lot of time and money on rebranding the series outside of Japan, so including Yakuza in the next title would be confusing.

Other possible explanations include Yakuza Wars being the title of a spin-off game or it being the name of a mini-game in the upcoming Like a Dragon entry.

Published Aug 5, 2024

MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg