Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth Has the Yakuza Series' Best Steam Launch
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth has logged the Yakuza series' biggest ever launch on Steam, with more than four times the player count of previous mainline entry Yakuza: Like a Dragon.
Infinite Wealth, which arrived January 26 as the eight mainline Yakuza game, achieved a peak concurrent player count of 46,161 during its launch weekend, compared to the seventh mainline entry's peak of 9,535 concurrent players, according to SteamDB.
The previous record was held by spin-off Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, which launched in November 2023, but even this was at just 13,737 peak concurrents and therefore blown out of the water by Infinite Wealth.
These are the only comparable numbers for the Yakuza series, however, as all previous games only launched on Steam after their initial releases on console. But the growth from Yakuza: Like a Dragon to Infinite Wealth certainly suggests a huge boost in popularity of the series overall.
Infinite Wealth takes the series outside of Japan for the first time as protagonists Ichiban Kasuga and Kiryu Kazuma arrive in Hawaii and, naturally, soon become involved in a complex web of criminal underworld shenanigans.
It features the Yakuza series' biggest map to date and lets players become a samurai, surfer, and housekeeper as it continues the unique blend of dramatic crime thriller and completely wacky side content, this time including what's basically an entire Pokémon game.
Publisher Sega has caused some frustration, however, as Infinite Wealth's New Game Plus mode is exclusive to the Deluxe and Ultimate versions of the game, which come in at $15 and $40 more expensive respectfully.
In our 9/10 review, IGN said: "Sprawling, enthralling, and packed with dynamic brawling, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth isn’t just the best turn-based Like a Dragon game, it’s one of the greatest games in the entire series."
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
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