10 Video Games With Bizarre Origin Stories
1. Yakuza: Like A Dragon Was An April Fools Joke
When April 1st rolls around, it’s time to be on your toes. There are plenty of social media managers out there who produce some amusing one-time gags, but occasionally companies will go too far with it.
After seven mainline Yakuza games highlighting the rises and falls of main man Kazuma Kiryu, Sega’s Ryu Ga Gotoku studio was making changes to the franchise with a new leading man. They hadn’t necessarily considered a huge departure from the fast-paced beat-em-up style gameplay of the previous titles but a video they produced for April Fools suddenly made that a possibility.
The fake reveal trailer was a good-humoured “what if” take on the series if it were a turn-based RPG. The thing was… it was awesome, featuring all the expected silly Yakuza sense of humour and badass environmental attacks.
The reaction to such a premise was so positive that the studio retooled the game they’d be working on, turning new hero Kasuga into a Dragon Quest fanboy who sees the world as a video game. Several moments from this April Fools gag feature in the finished product which, when it released in 2017, was so successful that Ryu Ga Gotoku are already at work on their next JRPG Yakuza title.
What started as a silly joke wound up completely revitalising a series.