After years relegated to console exclusivity, the Yakuza series spin-offs just got PC ESRB ratings.
Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio's detective agency spin-off from its Yakuza series has so far been console-exclusive, but hot damn, it's finally on the way to PC. As spotted by Nibellion on Twitter, the ESRB has listed official age ratings (Mature) for both Judgment and Lost Judgment on PC, which makes this almost certainly a sure thing. Nothing's final till it's final, but the RGG Summit livestream scheduled for this week seems very likely to be when we see an official reveal for these long-awaited PC ports.
This is a big deal for us Yakuza series freaks. As of last year, the entire main series is now playable on PC, and all eight games are in the PC Game Pass too. But Judgment, and its sequel Lost Judgment from 2021, have remained console-only. Hell, I'm downright annoying about the Yakuza games and even I've drawn the line at dragging my dusty original PS4 out of the closet for Judgment.
There's been a good amount of "will they or won't they" over the past couple years as rumors about a possible Judgment PC version contend with official comments that it isn't happening and rumors about talent agency disagreements surrounding the series protagonist's actor Takuya Kimura.
It seems that Sega has sorted all that out now, because the PC ratings, which you can find on the ESRB website, are indeed legit. They're relatively new, too. As of October 2021, Lost Judgment's rating was only listed as for Playstation 4 and 5 and Xbox consoles (via the Wayback Machine). Equivalent ratings haven't shown up on PEGI's website yet.
Aside from being an allegedly damn good pair of games, this will also mean that RGG's classic action brawler combat will get to live on for PC players. Historically, the Yakuza series has always been action beat-em-up fare until the series reboot Yakuza: Like A Dragon in 2020 opted for a turn-based battle system derived from classic party-based RPGs. The studio has since made it clear that the Yakuza series will carry on with the turn-based format while the action combat will live on in the Judgment series. So unless the Judgment games ever came to PC, we'd be out of luck.
I'll replay Yakuza 0 however many times I need to satisfy my love for combo-bashing, but getting cut off from its future iterations was a tad tragic. It'll be grand if PC players get to keep both turn-based and action thanks to some fresh Judgment releases.
This is pretty suspiciously good timing, too. The studio's RGG Summit is scheduled for tomorrow, September 14 at 6 am EDT / 9 am BST / 7 pm JST. I was hoping for a proper reveal for the next Yakuza game, but I'll surely take a side order of Judgment on PC confirmation.
