A new RGG Studio game will inevitably be compared with Like a Dragon, but the developers have been talking more openly about the things they do not want to carry over unchanged. Speaking to Famitsu around Gamescom 2026, producer Hiroyuki Sakamoto and director Mikinobu Abe described Stranger Than Heaven as a chance to reset established assumptions.
Makoto Daito is central to that decision. He begins as a young man rather than an already accomplished underworld legend, and the game intends to follow him for roughly half a century.
Five cities become a timeline
The story starts in San Francisco in 1915, where Daito, born to an American father and Japanese mother, decides to leave for Japan after losing his parents. His search for somewhere to belong becomes a journey across five distinct periods.
Kokura in 1915 gives way to Kure in 1929, Osaka in 1943, Atami in 1951 and Shinjuku in 1965. The locations are modeled around the character of their respective eras, allowing industrial expansion, wartime tension, postwar tourism and entertainment districts to sit inside the same personal story.
This is a particularly RGG Studio way of approaching history. Instead of treating the cities as background scenery, the team can use shops, streets, crowds and entertainment to show what has changed between chapters without turning the game into a conventional historical survey.
Makoto Daito has a second life on stage
The show-business system makes the premise stranger in a useful way. Daito's musical ability eventually leads him into producing performances, scouting singers and musicians and assembling shows around material collected from the streets.
Environmental sounds can become music: trains, sweeping brooms, animals and even noises made by enemies during fights are among the examples SEGA has given. Players can then choose performers, organise the band and adjust parts of a production before taking the show on tour.
That career gives the game's search for belonging another dimension. Daito is not only surviving violent encounters through five decades; he is gradually creating a public identity of his own.
One continuous story across fifty years
Sakamoto and Abe also stress that the five eras are not intended to feel like separate short stories. Daito remains the continuous line through them, and even the combat progression is being shaped around his age and experience.
Stranger Than Heaven is scheduled for January 15, 2027 on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. It will also launch through Xbox Game Pass.
