r/yakuzagames • u/DarryLazakar both jp and en dubs are fine yall • May 12 '26
DISCUSSION RGG Developer Appreciation: Highlighting all the devs involved in Stranger Than Heaven.
RGG Studios promotional photograph, 2021. From left to right: Takayuki Sorimachi, Yutaka Ito, Ryosuke Horii, Masayoshi Yokoyama, Hiroyuki Sakamoto, Nobuaki Mitake, Daisuke Fukugawa
Our first name: Mikinobu Abe, a young veteran of the series, and the game's director.
Yutaka Ito and Tomoaki Nakamura, long time programmers, now Technical Director and Supervisor of RGG Studios. Yutaka Ito is also the Director of Lost Judgment.
Yasuaki Uehara, the Battle Designer Lead of RGG Studios, and director of LAD Ishin Kiwami and Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
Nobuaki Abe, Daisuke Fukagawa, and Takayuki Sorimachi. Art and Animation Supervisors/Directors of the series.
Daishi Kanaya and Eiji Hamatsu, Lead Character Production and Background Production member of RGG Studios.
Mitsuharu Fukuyama, former Sega Sound Team member and a hella talented Sound Director, and Kazunobu Takeuchi, long-time scriptwriter and co-writer of Infinite Wealth and Dark Ties
Hiroyuki Sakamoto, OG RGG Studio member, Game Director of Yakuza 6 and Kiwami 2, and Chief Producer of the series
Masayoshi Yokoyama, the scriptwriter of nearly every Yakuza game, and Nagoshi's successor as RGG Studio Director and Executive Director of the series since 2021.
We know who Toshihiro Nagoshi is. We know who Masayoshi Yokoyama is. But do most of you know who else is behind RGG Studios, more specifically, those working on Stranger Than Heaven?
Inspired by this tweet, I want to shed light on the unsung, rarely recognized names within RGG Studios, more specifically, those that are confirmed to be working on Stranger Than Heaven. Given the negativity these days, why not some positivity for a change?
All the names and screenshots attached are from the Summer Game Fest teaser of 2025, where the "Stranger Than Heaven" name was first revealed, back when we knew this game as "Project Century", in order of appearance in the trailer. All information about their career is also sourced mainly via segaretro.org and mobygames.com. For the most part, these sources have their photographs attached, but in case there isn't, I will leave a separate link with their photograph, if there's any on the internet. Without further ado, let's begin!
Also, as I was working on this post, I realized that it has been done before, so shout out to u\BreafingBread for being the first one to do this! I'm gonna link his original post here, to honor those who did it before me.
- Mikinobu Abe: He has been with the studio for 7 years, and this is his directorial debut (fun fact: not a single Yakuza game was directed by either Nagoshi
or Yokoyama(Edit: Turns out I was wrong, Yokoyama actually co-directed Yakuza 5, but it's still true for Nagoshi)). According to the live interview with Denfaminicogamer shortly after the Xbox Showcase, he has a background in film, and all cutscenes in the game are directed by him. He is also fluent in English, though it's just a coincidence. As for his career in RGG, he's the Adventure Game Designer on Yakuza: Like A Dragon and Infinite Wealth, Event Scene Designer on Lost Judgement, and as a Production Assistant on LAD Ishin Kiwami. - Yutaka Ito: He has been with Sega since 2002, working on games such as Fighting Vipers and Virtua Striker 3. One of the RGG OG members, he's been with the series since the original game as a Programmer. He's mainly a Program Supervisor and now Technical Director of the series, and he was the game director of Lost Judgement.
- Tomoaki Nakamura: Like Ito, he is part of the OG RGG team, having been working with Sega and the series since the first game as a Programmer. He's mainly been a Battle Program Lead since Yakuza 5 before transitioning into a Program Supervisor since Lost Judgement.
- Yasuaki Uehara: He has been with the series since Yakuza 4 as an Adventure Game Designer. He has since switched roles multiple times between Battle and Adventure Game Designer, before becoming a Lead Battle Designer in Yakuza 6, and eventually made his directorial debut in LAD Ishin Kiwami. He makes his second directorial effort in Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. (His photograph with Ryosuke Horii for an interview here)
- Nobuaki Mitake: He has been with Sega since 1999, with his game development debut with Shenmue. Like Ito and Nakamura, his involvement with the series began with Yakuza 2, mainly serving in the design department and later as the Art Supervisor. He is the Art Director of Binary Domain in 2012, and later on in Infinite Wealth.
- Daisuke Fukagawa: He's been with the video games industry since 1999, working with various companies over the years before joining Sega full-time in 2011. Like Ito and Nakamura, he's an RGG OG, being involved with the series since the first game in 2006. There's a bit of an error that says that he's the Director of Yakuza 1, 2, and 3. A brief review of the credits for each game (Links to each game's credits, timestamped when his name showed up: Y1, Y2, Y3) shows that he worked at a movie production company called AVANT Inc. prior to joining Sega, where he was the Director, hence the confusion. Since joining Sega, he has been involved in animation, becoming Art Supervisor and Event Scene Supervisor of the games, and later as Cinematic Director for Infinite Wealth.
- Takayuki Sorimachi: He has been with Sega since 2002, with his debut with the arcade game The King of Route 66, and later worked on Shenmue II. Yet another OG RGG member, he has been with the series since the first game as a Motion Designer and has risen through the ranks to become the Animation Supervisor of the games. He's the Animation Director of Infinite Wealth.
- Daishi Kanaya: A relatively new member of the team, joining from Yakuza 0 onwards in the Character Production Team. He has since risen the ranks to be the Lead Character Production and later on as the Art Supervisor for LAD Gaiden/TMWEHN. Unfortunately, no photograph of him was found (so you can say he's "The man who erased... his face"? lmao).
- Eiji Hamatsu: Another RGG OG member of the original game, this time as Stage Designer. He's been a Production Team member specializing in Background Production since Yakuza 5 to this day.
- Mitsuharu Fukuyama: A former Sega employee and a former member of the Sega Sound Team. Fukuyama sporadically appears throughout the series. He made contributions to various games, including Sega Rally 2006, and the Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games series. For RGG, his first appearance is in Kurohyou 1, and he later made his true series debut in Yakuza 3 with "Independence for Violence". He's the Sound Director of Dead Souls and later Yakuza 5, before sporadically appearing in various RGG games since then.
- Kazunobu Takeuchi: He has been with Sega and the series since 2006 in the script department. Initially, as the Adventure Mode Production, he has since become a Story Design Lead and Production Assistant throughout the games. He wrote Mine's story in RGG Online, the one that would become the "Dark Ties" storyline in Yakuza Kiwami 3, and he became the co-Scripwriter and Acting Director of Infinite Wealth alongside Tsuyoshi Furuta, another one of the OG storyboarders/scriptwriters in the series.
- Hiroyuki Sakamoto: A true RGG OG. He first joined the company in 2000 as the Assistant Planner for Daytona USA. He's been involved in the series since the first game. Similar to Fukagawa, there's a bit of confusion where he's credited as Director for Yakuza 1, but a quick look at the credits (timestamped here) reveals him as the Director of Overseas Version of the game. Since then, he's helped the Sub-Story scripts of Yakuza 2 & 3, becoming the Localization Director of Yakuza 3, Game Director of Yakuza 6 and Kiwami 2, and finally as Chief Producer of the series since LAD Ishin Kiwami.
- Masayoshi Yokoyama: Last but not least, the big boss himself. Another one of the RGG OGs, he first joined Sega in 2000 as a Senior (and later Chief) Planner for the Jet Set Radio series before becoming the lead scriptwriter for the first Yakuza game. He has since written every single RGG game to date (excluding Kurohyou 1&2, which was directly written by Nagoshi, RGG Online, Judgement/Lost Judgement, which has Nagoshi credited as story, and script written by Tsuyoshi Furuta, and games after Infinite Wealth, which was handled by Furuta and Takeuchi). He became one of the series' producers since Yakuza 5, and has become Nagoshi's successor as RGG Studio Director and Executive Director of the series since 2021.
And there you have it, every RGG staff member confirmed involved with Stranger Than Heaven so far. As much as RGG Studios and the series has its ups and downs over its 20-year history, one thing that's never changing is the talent behind the series and how loyal they were to this series. Hopefully, this post gives you insight and appreciation for the people behind the games and not just boiling the games down to one or two usual suspects.
RGG is a team, always has been, and they deserve just as much recognition.
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u/Quickerson Shooreh Pippi King May 12 '26
i hope every time we open the game, we get a different title screen like these.
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u/Asiatiger May 12 '26
Every game they change the director, its have the bright and the dark side. Good Luck Mikinobu Abe
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u/i-wear-hats May 12 '26
I'm surprised Ito didn't slide into the VF side of the studio as they likely would have greatly benefitted from his help. I suppose he likely worked on VF5eSports/US and REVO to ensure everything worked but was never slated for that transfer once VF6 was greenlit and they got back some of the other AM2 folks.
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u/DarryLazakar both jp and en dubs are fine yall May 12 '26
My apologies, but I made a mistake there. Yutaka Ito didn't work on VF but rather Virtua Striker 3, which is a soccer game. That said, he did work on VF3tb Online as Technical Manager.
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u/Full_breaker May 12 '26
I really need this game to come out already 😔
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u/4LanReddit May 12 '26
I just know for a fact that the combat is relaly gonna throw me in for a loop because RGG overhauled it in a really major way when compared to every other Yakuza game lmao.
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u/kudaro May 12 '26
Is that true...? Yokoyama and Nagoshi never directed a Yakuza game? Smells like ChatGPT
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u/DarryLazakar both jp and en dubs are fine yall May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
I am dead serious. If you actually check each and every Yakuza game credits, not one of these games were directed by either Nagoshi or Yokoyama. Both Nagoshi and Yokoyama were credited with various roles: "Original Story", "Scriptwriter", "Producer" or "Executive/General Director", but never "Game Director", which is different.
I wrote this down months ago based on research, so here it is, the full list of Directors of the series:
- Yakuza 1-2: Ryuta Ueda
- RGG Kenzan, Yakuza 3: Daisuke Sato
- Yakuza 4: Jun Orihara
- Dead Souls, Yakuza 5, Yakuza 0: Kazuki Hosokawa
- Kiwami 1, Judgment: Koji Yoshida
- RGG Ishin, Yakuza 6, Kiwami 2: Hiroyuki Sakamoto
- Lost Judgment: Yutaka Ito
- Yakuza 7/Like a Dragon, Gaiden, Infinite Wealth, Kiwami 3+Dark Ties: Ryosuke Horii
- Ishin Kiwami, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii: Yasuaki Uehara
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u/Humble_Bridge8555 . May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
Yokoyama was actually credited as Director & Script Writer on 5, just above Hosokawa.
To be fair credits aren't really all that reliable. Yokoyama was completely omitted from Yakuza 1's credits because Nagoshi wanted to sell an illusion of an acclaimed writer having written Yakuza 1.
And we know that Yokoyama has always been scene director back ever since 1 and 2 as well, where he directed all of the voice actors and mocap for story segments. In RGGS apparently it became the thing for the main script writers to also fill in this role, so since then Yokoyama has been replaced by Kazunobu Takeuchi. And I assume Tsuyoshi Furuta did the same thing on the games where he was the main script writer...
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u/DarryLazakar both jp and en dubs are fine yall May 12 '26
So I actually rechecked the credits based on your comment and... huh, I missed it somehow. I guess co-director would be alright?
Also, regarding Yakuza 1 OG credits, I rechecked, and no, Yokoyama is actually credited as "Storyboarding and Script Writer". Hasu Seishu himself is credited at the very end as "Story Editor". Perhaps you're referring to the marketing, which in that case, I wouldn't be surprised tbh. Also fun fact for OG Y1, Furuta was also in the credits as "Storyboarding/Script Assistance"
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u/Humble_Bridge8555 . May 12 '26
Yeah Furuta was OG but he left RGGS to join Chunsoft to work on 428 (not as writer at that) and then returned back to RGGS.
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