According to a recent internal interview from Sega with Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio producer and director Masayoshi Yokoyama, Yakuza: Like A Dragon was originally intended to be a continuation of the series' action-adventure roots until an unnamed Sega president rejected the idea for lacking innovation.
These quotes are translated using Google and may not be fully accurate as a result. "The president said, 'This is no good because there is no innovation and I can't see a future of success'. The intention was always to have a new protagonist in Ichiban, but the decision to make Like a Dragon turn-based with more RPG elements came post-rejection.
"On the way home [from the rejection] I had already told [Hiroyuki] Sakamoto 'Let's make Yakuza 7 an RPG. I had always thought Yakuza had a good affinity with story-focused RPGs, so I thought that now was the time to change it," Yokoyama said.
"That evening, I revised my proposal and proposed an RPG version of Yakuza 7 with the aim of attracting new users, asking the president 'Do you think this is worth investing in?' He replies, 'It's a challenge and it's innovative', and my proposal passed the review."...
