RGG Studio may very much be theYakuzastudio in people’s eyes, having taken over developing the series starting with 2012’sYakuza 5. But the first game the studio ever made was actually a third-person shooter calledBinary Domain, a far cry from what RGG Studio makes nowadays. While it received mixed reviews at launch and didn’t perform financially well in the United States (only selling 20,000 copies two months after release), there seems to be some desire to revisit it, not just from fans but also one of the game’s directors.
Daisuke Sato, who currently serves as a producer on theYakuzaseries, was asked during an interview with GameBlog if it was at all possible to makeBinary Domainbackwards compatible so it can be played on the Xbox Series X/S. Since the game originally released in 2012 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC, it’s not exactly easy to access nowadays on modern consoles (it’s still available on Steam for PC owners) and thenew Xbox’s backwards compatibility featuresseem like the best viable option.
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It’s certainly not impossible, as there are still plenty of old Xbox 360 and Xbox One games that have yet to be made available through the feature, and Sato says that he’d really like to make it happen. However, he adds that he’d also like to go back, make changes to the game, and redo some parts altogether. ABinary Domainremaster could help address some of its issues and potentially help it reach a new audience, but just because Sato wants to do it doesn’t mean it’s a guarantee, since it’d likely need approval from Sega.
In addition, he reiterated a desire to not only remaster theYakuza KenzanandIshinspin-offs, but also release them in the west. The two games, which take theYakuzacast and put them in a samurai setting, are only available in Japan, but Sato believes that they might be easier to sell in the west now thanks to the success ofGhost of Tsushima, which has helped make samurais more popular and well-known.
Sato was also asked if the studio has any plans to make more non-Yakuzatitles likeBinary Domain. Sato explains that it will probably focus on the genre it’s good at, but that doesn’t rule out it tackling other genres. He says that it makes decisions based on what kind of game it’s making. For example, withYakuza: Like a Dragon, the decision to switch from real-time combat to a turn-based system was because it better fit the story of new main character Ichiban Kasuga. It was for similar reasons thatBinary Domainwas made a third-person shooter.
