Yakuza’s studio helped with Streets of Rage 4

Streets of Rage 4 will be available within hours and marks the return of the mythical SEGA series, dormant for 26 years.

In 2018, Dotemu and Lizardcube asked Guard Crush Games for help in developing a new game in the Streets of Rage series and managed to get approval from SEGA, which apparently did not get involved in producing this room in the title.

However, although SEGA’s involvement in the development of Streets of Rage 4 has not previously been confirmed, the game’s final credits reveal that a small Japanese team contributed to developing this game.

As captured by the players, the final credits confirm the participation of a “SEGA Development Team” made up of 6 SEGA employees, all of whom belong to Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio of the Yakuza and Judgment series.

Daisuke Saito (producer of Judgment and the Yakuza series), Yukinobu Arikawa (production assistant in the Yakuza series and a veteran who worked on series like Shenmue), Daiki Tsuchimoto (main event programmer in the Yakuza series), Kouta Satoh (programmer in the series Yakuza), Sumito Nakai (combat system programmer in the Yakuza series) and Yosuke Okunari (SEGA veteran and currently special advisor) are the 6 SEGA Japanese who helped make Streets of Rage 4 a fascinating game.

This does not in itself explain why this Streets of Rage 4 is so faithful to the originals and combines a retro feel with an updated tone, but it can help you understand where some of your pedigree came from.