Aug 212019
After rumors that the Yakuza 3 remaster would be revealed for the West at Gamescom, yesterday’s Yakuza news was better than we could have imagined with the announcement of the Yakuza Remastered Collection.
Yes, the remasters of Yakuza 3, Yakuza 4, and Yakuza 5 have all been confirmed. The Yakuza Remastered Collection is available now digitally from the PlayStation Store. Not only that, but Yakuza 3 is out now, with Yakuza 4 to follow on October 29 and Yakuza 5 on February 11.
It seems there’s no way to purchase them individually, which is a bit odd. Maybe that will become possible in the future.
There was also excellent news for fans like me who prefer physical copies. Physical copies of the Yakuza Remastered Collection will be available on February 11 as well, and it even includes an empty Yakuza 5 PS3 case for collectors (as Yakuza 5 was originally digital-only in the west).
An Amazon page is up for the physical collection, but it’s not available to preorder yet.
Check out the trailer.
Now, are these remasters identical to the PS3 releases? No, it’s been confirmed that there are many improvements, including a redone localization (fixing odd translation/localization choices in the original) and the restoration of cut content.
I believe a couple of small things were cut for the remaster of Yakuza 3 itself, but basically the western version of the remaster will have all the content present in the Japanese version of the remaster, which is a lot more than was in the original western version.
Finally, localization of the spin-off Yakuza Ishin is reported to be “under consideration,” with the main holdup being that they don’t know if the West would be interested in the setting. All we have to do now is convince them that samurai games are popular.
So yesterday was a pretty exciting day for Yakuza fans, and don’t forget that information about Shin Yakuza will be revealed on August 29!
I’m waiting for the physical release of the Yakuza Remastered Collection, which is fine since I still need to finish Judgment and play Kiwami 2 before I’ll be ready for Yakuza 3 anyway. What about you? Will you be picking up the Yakuza remasters?
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I hope they bring it out on Steam later.
Since 0, Kiwami, and Kiwami 2 are all on Steam, I think they probably will eventually.