Like A Dragon and the Yakuza series is no stranger to featuring real-life people in its games, from antagonists, to of course the many actors that portray the various hostesses and side characters in the games. This tradition didn’t change with the upcoming Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name which also held auditions for the role of a hostess.
This time though the official selection bases “life” as its main criteria, and essentially means the game won’t be using 3D models this time around, but rather the hostesses will be presented in real life. How that’s actually going to happen hasn’t been revealed yet, though it may be a little similar to how Yakuza 6 handled its net cafe minigame.
After the first batch of auditions ended, the second selection began at Sega’s main office in Osaki on January 22, 13:00 [JST]. In addition to what you’d expect from actresses and other stars, one notable face that cropped up in the audition was none other than the Vtuber with over 1.24 million subs, and a major fan of the Yakuza series, Kson herself!
▍ The Audition Process of Like a Dragon Gaiden
The Like a Dragon Gaiden auditions were led by the lead game designer and director Masayoshi Yokoyama. The auditions were split into two groups, and Kson was assigned to the second group, wearing a lavender two-piece strapless dress, while the other candidates wore black dresses.
Kson also mentioned to the production team that she learned Japanese because of the Yakuza series and that she’s a huge fan, also mentioning that the same goes for many of her fans. When the production team asked how many fans she had and how many of them lived outside of Japan, she was shy when it came to answering, but expressed her confidence in making the game fun for people in, and outside of Japan.
The production team then asked how she would interact with Kiryu as a hostess. She laughed and said that “I think Kiryu wouldn’t have a whole lot to say, but Kiryu’s a person who’s interested in a lot of things, so I’d hope to talk to Kiryu about a lot of things including Vtubers.
▍ An Interview With the Audition Review Team
Finally, the representative of Ryu ga Gotoku Studio and director Masayoshi Yokoyama agreed to a brief interview with on-site media. He mentioned that in addition to sitting at being on the panel of the review team, the venue was also packed with production staff and camera crew observing various angles of the various participants during the audition to start getting an idea of interesting stories they could tell with them and gather any new ideas for Like a Dragon Gaiden.
While that’s all the information shared with us about Like a Dragon Gaiden’s development, stay tuned in the future as the studio continues to share development info and new information about the game with us!
▍The Results of the Audition
Then on February 16 in an official live stream titled Dragon Star #17, the results were revealed showing that a total of 10 people have been selected for the final selection process, then on the live stream Kson showed up and it was announced she made it to the list!
Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name is scheduled for release in 2023 on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC