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During last week's Nintendo Direct: Partner Showcase, SEGA's RGG Studio announced that Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza Kiwami 2 will be coming to Nintendo Switch 2. The two ports are set to launch simultaneously on November 13. In the meantime, RGG Studio is also working on the brand new-title Stranger Than Heaven (previously known as "Project Century") and a new Virtua Fighter project.

Following the Nintendo Direct announcement, RGG Studio's technical director Yutaka Ito checked in on his personal X account to share a comment about the team's development style. "RGG Studio's programmers work on new releases, ports and remasters in one team. It's completely normal here for one person to be working on 3 or 4 titles at the same time, but other people in the industry get quite surprised when they hear about it. Both Kiwami and Kiwami 2 will be coming out on November 13 for the Switch 2, so please look forward to it!"

Although Ito specifically mentions programmers, RGG Studio's leads have previously talked about the one-team development style they use to efficiently work on multiple projects in parallel. "We look at making Like a Dragon Gaiden and Infinite Wealth as the same thing. If I'm in charge of a certain minigame for one title, I'll also be in charge of it for another title. This is how we categorize tasks across different projects. If a certain type of minigame involves a lot of physics work, one person will be in charge of them across all projects. If there's AI, one person will handle AI in all projects. As projects move along vertically, everyone is crossing over from one to the other horizontally."

Even though this has been RGG Studio's way of doing things since the Yakuza series' early days, it seems it's still unusual enough to earn surprised reactions from industry peers. According to executive producer Masayoshi Yokoyama's comments from this year, RGG Studio counts around 300 staff members, and around 70 to 80 people generally work on Like a Dragon games during the studio's busiest periods. Apart from the internal team dedicated to the Super Monkey Ball series, all other staff members move around freely between different franchises based on need, including working on multiple titles at once.

While it's uncommon in the industry, it seems this approach to development has been beneficial to RGG Studio, as they have barely felt the need to upsize their workforce throughout the Yakuza series' history. With additional work style reforms and a focus on simultaneous worldwide releases, they have also seen crunch culture decrease rather than intensify throughout the years.

Like a Dragon’s devs get spooked looks from industry peers when they say they juggle up to 3-4 titles simultaneously with one team - AUTOMATON WEST

RGG Studio technical lead Yutaka Ito talks about the studio's one-team development system that spooks fellow colleagues in the game industry.

automaton-media.com

 

[ssringo]

I mean, they recycle so much between entries that its not all that surprising to hear.

 

[diffusionx]

The gap between productive teams like this and the mean incompetent studio is only going to continue to grow and it's going to be a major advantage for Sega.

 

[Thief1987]

Meh, Falcom simultaneously juggle up more titles than they have developers.

 

[Fabieter]

I mean, they recycle so much between entries that its not all that surprising to hear.

They do it in such a unique and great way.

 

[ecosse_011172]

They're fucking amazing.
The do benefit from plenty of reuse but their games are always fantastic, easily one of my favourite devs.

 

[Nankatsu]

All industry be like:

Why you no covid excuse, Kazuma-san?

 

[GateofD]

I mean, they only do one entire series that are really just one big continuous project, so makes total sense.

 

[xrnzaaas]

I hope they're working on even more projects. I'm sure that a small group is already working on the next big LaD game to come out possibly in 2027.

 

[March Climber]

Some posters here are going to make this thread a west vs east issue, but from reading all of that the real worry seems to be that this studio is working at almost an anime studio's pace, and we all know how grueling the work can be in anime studios.

 

[LavitzSlambert]

Although Ito specifically mentions programmers, RGG Studio's leads have previously talked about the one-team development style they use to efficiently work on multiple projects in parallel. "We look at making Like a Dragon Gaiden and Infinite Wealth as the same thing. If I'm in charge of a certain minigame for one title, I'll also be in charge of it for another title. This is how we categorize tasks across different projects. If a certain type of minigame involves a lot of physics work, one person will be in charge of them across all projects. If there's AI, one person will handle AI in all projects. As projects move along vertically, everyone is crossing over from one to the other horizontally."

Makes perfect sense to keep the experience consistent and avoid redundancies. If you're creating a darts minigame, why would you have a different person working on it for each game? Much better to centralize.

This kind of development style does NOT work if you are making many different kinds of games, but considering the significant reuse of assets and gameplay elements, it certainly makes sense for RGG.

 

[IAmRei]

I recall story about Inafune...

That's when they are asked by fans, at the time, to create megaman / rockman 2.
He said that they will try to make it if they got chance. and when the higher ups coming, they already got 4 project at the time.
they simply add their project, megaman 2, and sleep only 4 hours per day. and several months later, they have megaman 2 ready.
japan game industry is harsh by today standard Work Life balance.

i don't know how they managed it, but it's inspire me to work hard in this industry.
I worked 12-18 hours per day, wishing that I someday will be at least reaching Inafune level, it might be hard, well, I'm trying : ))

salute for the RGT team, I wish for the best to deliver continuously great product each time

 

[a multicultural team of v]

Great dev team and approach to making games, but this method lives and dies by the quality of the plot/characters/setting/etc - the stuff that actually changes between games.

And, well...... I just hope Stranger Than Heaven is a return to their prior quality in those aspects.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

The white man fears the Japanese work ethic.

 

[CuteFaceJay]

Well it's all based on the real Yakuza so the story and content writes itself at least.