At Sony’s pre-Tokyo Game Show media showcased called the Playstation Lineup Tour, Sega”s Ryu Ga Gotoku (Yakuza) Studio revealed their new IP, coming out soon in Japan.
As of right now, it is only officially referred to Project Judge in English, a working title. Though the Japanese logo features the word Judge Eyes. In this game, you play as Takayuki Yagami, and ex-lawyer turned investigator who is out to discover and unravel a series of murder cases.
Here’s the story trailer, as it debuted on the media showcase, now with English subtitles.
https://youtu.be/8W3LTT5VRr8
Despite this being positioned as an entirely new IP, there’s still many elements from the Yakuza series still apparent here. Yagami still has to fight in certain cases. But it will feature a new moveset that includes two different styles. He can also do wall run attacks that combos into a grab. There are chase sequences similar to several past Yakuza games. There will also be wacky mini-games, from a shoot-em-up where you carry a rocket launcher to drone racing. Even the setting is in Kamurocho.
Still, the new gameplay elements from Project Judge are intriguing too. Tail missions, identifying suspects, photo ops (with criterias that will get you more money for better pictures), stealth missions and interrogation scenes should give Project Judge a different enough feel from its obvious Yakuza foundation.
A demo of Project Judge is now available on the Japanese PS Store. You can see the gameplay we mentioned in action here:
Project Judge will be out on December 13th for the PS4 in Japan. It has also been announced that the English release will be out in 2019.