You don’t need to play Yakuza: Like a Dragon before Infinite Wealth, but you should

polygon.com:

If Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is going to be your entry point into the Like a Dragon series (formerly known as Yakuza), first of all, welcome. You’ll probably have a good time. However, I implore you to consider playing its predecessor, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, before moving on to the newer release. While you could certainly still enjoy Infinite Wealth without playing Like a Dragon, it lays the groundwork to get the most out of the latest entry in one of gaming’s most entertaining franchises, introducing you to delightful characters and a bizarre world where you’ll be asked to save people stranded without toilet paper in public restrooms and fight a tiger with your bare hands. And it’s also on Game Pass, which never hurts.

Tonally, Yakuza: Like a Dragon isn’t all that different from previous games in the series. It offers a dramatic — often violent — tale of betrayal and chasing innocence, intermixed with the most varied side quests in gaming. It borrows many of the same activities you can engage in when you aren’t fighting, like spending time in an arcade filled with fleshed-out Sega minigames, or getting delightfully out of character at the karaoke with PaRappa the Rapper-style rhythm-based challenges. There’s even a whole business simulator you can stumble upon (I highly recommend it). For new and even returning players, it’s a lot to have washed over you, but it feels so good to bathe in.

This variety spoiled me in ways that no other RPG has so far matched. As I ran through the streets of Yokohama and Kamurocho for nearly 76 hours, it wasn’t the temptation of earning more XP that kept me going, or completing side quests just for the sake of checking boxes. It was that, around a surprising