Back in 2021, the creator of the Yakuza/Like a Dragon franchise, Toshihiro Nagoshi, left Sega after thirty years with the company and joined Chinese company NetEase. Then, in early 2022, his new studio, aptly named Nagoshi Studio, would be established to develop his next game. At The Game Awards last year, we finally got to see that game which revealed as Gang of Dragon. Now, unfortunate news has come out as Bloomberg is reporting that NetEase has decided to stop funding the studio which now puts the release of Gang of Dragon in jeopardy.
According to the reports, NetEase made the decision that it will stop funding Nagoshi Studio this coming May once they found out that the studio would still need over $44 million in funding to complete work on Gang of Dragon. With funding from NetEase being cut, this would most likely result in a shut down of Nagoshi Studio as it is a subsidiary of NetEase. However, the Bloomberg reports continues t hat NetEase isn’t opposed to letting the studio continue working on the game if Nagoshi and the team can cover the costs themselves or buy themselves out from under the publisher. This has led to Nagoshi to search for outside support to help with new funding, but he reportedly hasn’t had any luck in that regard as of yet.
All this comes in the wake of NetEase having a tumultuous past few years. 2024 saw the company dismiss top executives due to alleged scandals as well as the shuttering of its Worlds Untold studio. Then, the company has also been uncoupling itself from its non-Chinese investments in the gaming sphere. Last year, NetEase cut the entirety of the US development team for Marvel Rivals despite the game’s success.
With Nagoshi’s former series Yakuza/Like a Dragon being more popular now than it has ever been, many fans were excited to finally see Gang of Dragon and hopeful to play it whenever it would release. However, that day may never come unless a new company swoops in to save the game and the studio. Thus, only time will tell as to what happens next for Nagoshi and his team.