Yakuza Kiwami 3 continues the series’ retro tradition by including 12 playable Game Gear titles

Yakuza Kiwami 3 will once again let players enjoy classic Sega games, but this time they’ll be on the Game Gear.

Previous games in the Yakuza / Like a Dragon series have let players discover and play classic Sega arcade games, with the likes of Out Run, Space Harrier, Fantasy Zone, Virtua Fighter 2, Super Hang-On and Puyo-Puyo playable in the past.

When developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio released Lost Judgment, it changed things slightly by adding a Sega Master System to protagonist Takayuki Yagami’s office, allowing him to choose from a selection of eight games (with a further four added as DLC).

This continued over to Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name and Like Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, both of which also had Master System consoles offering a selection of 8-bit games to play.

This time, for the upcoming remake of Yakuza 3, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has introduced a playable Sega Game Gear for the first time in the series, featuring 12 games including three guest titles from Bandai Namco.

The studio posted on X that the Namco Game Gear titles Pac-Man, Mappy and Galaga ’91 would be playable in the game, before technical director Yutaka Ito then posted the full list of 12 games.

The Game Gear games playable in Yakuza Kiwami 3 will be as follows:

• Columns
• Fantasy Zone Gear
• Galaga ’91
• The GG Shinobi
• G-LOC
• Mappy
• Pac-Man
• Puyo Puyo
• Sonic Chaos
• Sonic Drift
• Streets of Rage
• Woody Pop

Seven of the games – Columns, G-LOC, Mappy, Pac-Man, Puyo Puyo, Sonic Drift and Streets of Rage – will be playable in two-player mode, with split-screen multiplayer.

Yakuza Kiwami 3 will be released on February 12 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PS4 and PC.

As well as a full remake of the 2009 action adventure game originally released on PS3, it will also include Dark Ties, a brand new spin-off game starring antagonist Yoshitaka Mine.