Yakuza Creator's Next Game Will Be Sent to Die As NetEase Implodes

Back when Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi left SEGA and signed up with NetEase, it was expected he’d have the resources required to make the next big thing. After all, the Chinese juggernaut was on an outrageous spending spree, with money seemingly no object at all.

Now it sounds like his next game will be sent out to die.

Expansive reports from both Bloomberg and GameFile reveal that billionaire CEO Ding Lei is on a massive money saving spree, and its overseas teams will be taking the fall. We’ve already seen evidence of this following the redundancies around hit game Marvel Rivals’ support studio in Seattle.

According to the articles, Nagoshi’s game has not been cancelled, and he will receive enough funding to finish the project. However, there’ll be no extensions and the release won’t receive any marketing at all. It’ll effectively be sent out to die.

Other studios which could be affected include Suda51’s legendary outfit Grasshopper Manufacture, which it acquired in 2022. It already shuttered Visions of Mana studio Ouka late last year.

In loosely related news, Bloomberg reports that Marvel Rivals almost didn’t release, because Ding didn’t want to pay Disney to license the game’s cast of characters, and even at one point instructed the team to create new original superhero designs to be used in the game.