The Yakuza series will soon be complete on PS4. Sega announced The Yakuza Remastered Collection today, a $59.99 all-in-one bundle of Yakuza 3, 4, and 5 that includes updated versions of the original games complete with improved visuals, revised localizations, and restored content that was previously cut from their Western versions. You can even play Yakuza 3 right now, as the first part of the collection is live on the PlayStation Store.
Yakuza 4 will follow via an update on October 29, 2019 and then Yakuza 5 will complete the collection on February 11, 2020. Think of it like an episodic game with 30-hour-plus episodes. If you prefer to buy the whole thing physically, you can wait until February 11 to pick up The Yakuza Remastered Collection: Day One Edition, which includes all three games for PS4 on two discs. As a belated apology to collectors with a gap on their shelves, it even includes an authentic PS3 case for Yakuza 5 (it was never released physically in the West).
When Yakuza 0 came to Western audiences in 2017, it was a perfect entry point that helped spark an international revival for the then 12-year-old franchise. Players who wanted to continue with protagonist Kazuma Kiryu's story on PS4 would then get Yakuza Kiwami, Yakuza Kiwami 2, and Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, but that still left a roughly ten-year gap in the narrative. With The Yakuza Remastered Collection, players will be able to play every chapter of Kiryu's tale all on one platform.
I'm currently playing through Yakuza Kiwami 2 and was starting to resign myself to the notion of skipping straight to Yakuza 6 (since I didn't really want to go through the hassle of playing older versions on PS Now or PS3). Now I can play the whole thing! If I keep progressing through them at my current pace, I should finally see the credits roll on Yakuza 6 sometime around... 2022.
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