The very first off-screen images and footage of Yakuza 8 have emerged, and it comes from an odd source: the YouTube channel of mixed martial artist Mikuru Asakura, who took a tour of the RGG Studio office. During the tour (via Gematsu translation), Sega president Haruki Satomi and RGG Studio president Masayoshi Yokoyama offered Asakura a role in the game, which he apparently accepted immediately. Additionally, the images reveal the return of Yu Nanba and Koichi Adachi in Yakuza 8, as well as protagonist Ichiban Kasuga sporting a new ponytail hair style.
Furthermore, Satomi and Yokoyama revealed that Yakuza 8 will include a new city, and they also reiterated that a new non-Yakuza game is in development at RGG Studio.
We have cued up the Mikuru Asakura video to the general moment when you can start seeing the first Yakuza 8 images and footage on the RGG Studio computers.
These images and tiny story details mark the first real information we have heard about Yakuza 8 since the confirmation that it would be another turn-based RPG starring Ichiban Kasuga. The game has no release window yet. It is uncertain if there will be a third Judgment game, a spinoff series starring protagonist Takayuki Yagami, but Lost Judgment recently received story DLC, The Kaito Files. If it turns out that Sega does not continue the Judgment franchise, then perhaps the unannounced RGG Studio game will be a replacement for it.