Guest characters in fighting games are becoming more and more common these days, with Guilty Gear Strive and Street Fighter 6 both breaking tradition with the additions of Lucy from Cyberpunk Edgerunners and Terry and Mai from Fatal Fury respectively. It's led to calls for some of gaming's most iconic brawlers to have their own guest appearances.
Alongside Tifa from Final Fantasy 7, Kiryu from the Like A Dragon/Yakuza series has been a popular shout for either a Tekken 8 or Virtua Fighter guest appearance. Former series producer Toshihiro Nagoshi answered the question about a Kiryu fighting game appearance in the past, claiming that he didn't want the character hitting women, but now that Masayoshi Yokoyama is running things, there was some hope that stance might have changed.
The live-action adaptation is getting serious, and maybe that's for the best.
Unfortunately, while Yokoyama doesn't have the same worries as Nagoshi, he doesn't think putting a Yakuza character like Kiryu in a fighting game is in the best interest for the series. In a recent interview with Polygon, Yokoyama explains that he'd much rather see characters from the Like A Dragon/Yakuza series go "across mediums" instead, pointing to the upcoming...
