Toshihiro Nagoshi explains why Hokuto ga Gotoku does not use the Dragon Engine

The newly announced Hokuto ga Gotoku, a Fist of the North Star game developed by the team behind Yakuza, uses the studio’s older engine, which is used in Yakuza: Kiwami, instead of the studio’s newer Dragon Engine, which is used in Yakuza 6: The Song of Life and Yakuza: Kiwami 2. During a Sega-Nama live stream today, Yakuza series general director and Yakuza Studio head Toshihiro Nagoshi explained the reasons for this.

According to Nagoshi, there are two reasons:

1. First off, the “Dragon Engine” is an in-development engine, and while it performs very well, it can be peaky and difficult to work with. Recently, there was a structural change at Sega Games and with it the team expanded, so a large number of staff that were not involved in the Yakuza project came in. Under such circumstances, given that things like the tools environment and development know-how of the earlier engine are complete compared to the Dragon Engine, it was more appropriate to use the earlier engine, which nevertheless has sufficient performance.
2. Hokuto ga Gotoku‘s graphics are realistic, but there is a bit of manga-esque shading called the toon shader. Considering that, they came to the conclusion that they should use the earlier engine rather than the Dragon Engine, which is more realistic and harder to work with.

Hokuto ga Gotoku is due out for PlayStation 4 in Japan in 2018.

Thanks, Games Talk.