GS: Yakuza 6 is set to be the final chapter of Kazuma Kiryu's saga. What fueled the creative decision to do this?
Nagoshi: Back during Yakuza 4's development, we started to think, ”How are we going to bring Kazuma Kiryu's story to a close?" Since the games are made to have all the characters age with each consecutive entry, we had to consider when to put an end cap on each character's story. Yakuza's story doesn't contain characters with superpowers who can use magic; this isn't fantasy. The game tells stories with real people and real drama. This has always been a major underpinning of the series, so we always knew that, at some point, Kiryu's story had to come to a close.
Similar to the way the 007 series hires new leads to keep the franchise going, we intend to have different protagonists appear in the Yakuza games in order to keep the series alive. When Sean Connery passed on the James Bond torch, a lot of people complained, but eventually people grew accustomed to the new actors. Each actor put their own flair to the 007 character, so in the same way, we believe that the different protagonists we'll end up using will ultimately be able to carry the torch for Kiryu.
