Yakuza Creator Toshihiro Nagoshi’s New NetEase Studio Revealed

Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi announced last October that he was departing from Sega, and today, his new NetEase studio, aptly called Nagoshi Studio, has been revealed. 

Twitter user Nibellion (perhaps more well-known as Nibel) posted a link to the Nagoshi Studio website, where they learned that Nagoshi is its CEO. It’s also where Nibel discovered that eight of the founding Nagoshi Studio members previously worked at Sega or Yakuza developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. This is where Nagoshi previously worked before taking an executive role within Sega. 

Nibel notes that in an interview with Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, Nagoshi explains that he left Sega because he didn’t want to do the same thing repeatedly. At NetEase, there are fewer creative constraints on him. Plus, it allows him to be closer to actual game development again. 

In that same interview, Nagoshi said the studio hopes to announce its first game as soon as possible and that said game will have a “large” scale. The CEO also says the studio is focused on quality and appealing to both core fans and a larger audience while doing things he and the other developers there couldn’t do before (perhaps at RGG or Sega).

While waiting to learn more about Nagoshi Studio’s first title, read about how RGG has confirmed that a sequel to Yakuza: Like A Dragon is in the works, and then check out this interview with Nagoshi, where he reveals why Sega should have fired him in the 1990s. Read about why one Game Informer editor believes you should play more Yakuza right now after that. 

Are you excited for Nagoshi Studio and its first game? Let us know in the comments below!