The people behind the Yakuza games have announced that their 2018 game Judgment is getting a sequel.
Titled “Lost Judgment”, the game will be released on September 24, 2021, and brings back series’ protagonist Takayuki Yamagi for another action and adventure game set on the streets of Tokyo, Japan.
Actually, aside from the Kamurocho setting of the first Judgment game, Lost Judgment also takes place in Yokohama, in the fictional Isezaki Ijincho district which was also the setting of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s latest Yakuza game, Yakuza: Like a Dragon (see here for more about this latest Yakuza game).
As stated earlier, Lost Judgment brings back the protagonist of 2018’s Judgment, Takayuki Yamagi. The guy is a former lawyer who’s now a detective, and who will have to investigate a grisly murder, a murder which could have been committed by a character accused of sexual harassment and whose lawyer has asked you to investigate the matter as seen in the trailer below.
Like the previous Judgment game, this will have stealth sequences in which you trail suspects around the city, and also side quests. More interestingly, this will have the new “school stories”, which will reveal more about the characters and are set in a high school in the game’s open-world Yokohama, a school which is based on a real-life one according to the game’s director Toshihiro Nagoshi.
Of course, you can expect a spin-off of the Yakuza games to have plenty of action, and the game’s protagonist Takayuki Yamagi will get an extra fighting style over the two he had in the previous Judgment game. The new “snake” fighting style can be used to disarm and parry enemies during fights.
This is in contrast to what the studio did with the latest Yakuza game (Yakuza: Like a Dragon), abandoning the series action gameplay and turning the game into a turn-based RPG. So thankfully for action fans Lost Judgment will stick to Yakuza-style fighting in the next instalment.
Also, and like Yakuza: Like a Dragon, the game has been dubbed in English, with most of the actors from the 2018 Judgment game reprising their roles. Of course, the original Japanese voices are also available for those who’d rather listen to the original actors strutting their stuff. Aside from this, players will also have subtitles available in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish.
Lost Judgment will be published by Sega as the earlier instalment, and will be hitting the PS5, PS4, Xbox One and Xbox Series X and S this fall.
Initially there was some confusion regarding whether Lost Judgment would be hitting the PC or not. The likes of prolific Twitter user Wario64 had tweeted about a PC version of the game. Apparently Lost Judgment would be coming to PC at launch according to the game’s official site, but any mention of this was removed. This was unlikely anyway taking into account that the 2018 Judgment game is yet to hit the PC, although last year’s Yakuza: Like a Dragon was available on PC at launch.
So it seems Sega is leaving the good old PC aside again with this Judgment sequel, at least at launch.
Nonetheless, this still looks like it could be another fantastic action and adventure game with a crime story set in Japan, so this is definitely one that Yakuza fans and those who liked the previous Judgment game should keep and eye on for sure.
Note: Lost Judgment will be released on September 24, 2021. Available on PS4, Xbox One, PS5 and Xbox Series X (and S).