The delightfully-named Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is set to be a little bigger than the last spin-off in the series, but it's not the developer's fault. Adding more stuff to Yakuza games is just too irresistible.
RGG Studios director Masayoshi Yokoyama has acknowledged that Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name was acclaimed partly because of its more compact structure and focused story, but despite the team's best efforts, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is breaking that streak.
Yokoyama also explained that the developer could have padded out the playtime even more by adding fetch quests or other time-sinking detours, but Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is already big enough without any such tactics. "The map is huge, there's a bunch of places to visit, and there are still features we haven’t announced yet. The volume increased by itself."
Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii reuses some parts of Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth's humungous summery map, and adds all new areas from the surrounding islands we never got to see, so its inflated size is no surprise here.
