Lost Judgment could be the final game in the Yakuza spinoff series following a standoff between Sega and the talent agency responsible for the game's actors.
Lost Judgment will launch later this year marking the second installment in the Judgment series. The two games are spinoffs that take place in the same universe as the Yakuza games. However, no matter how well Lost Judgment does in the sales department, it could be the last we see of this particular Yakuza branch thanks to a reported dispute behind the scenes.
According to Japanese showbiz site Nikkan Taishu, the dispute stems from Sega's want to bring Judgment, and eventually Lost Judgment, to Steam. The talent agency responsible for actor Takuya Kimura, who voices the series' lead character Takayuki Yagami, will not allow that to happen. That may lead Sega to stop making Judgment games from this point on as it can't make more money from the series by releasing it on a new platform.
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The agency, named Johnny & Associates, has very strict rules over the use of its client's likeness. Apparently, it is unwilling for Kimura's work to be used on a project released on PC and would like the Judgment games to be restricted to console only. It remains unclear why the agency is sticking to these rules so closely and is unwilling to bend them, perhaps with the future of a very popular series on the line.
The same report reveals this isn't a new development. Sega has been speaking with the agency for a while in its attempts to get Judgment and Lost Judgment on Steam. The agency's reluctance to budge for however long negotiations have been ongoing appears to have reached a point where Sega may well leave the series at two games, albeit unwillingly.
Sega is clearly confident Lost Judgment is going to do well. It will be the first chapter in the Judgment and Yakuza series that gets a simultaneous worldwide release. Every other game in the Yakuza universe has been released in Japan months, sometimes even more than a year before it makes it to other markets. It launches on PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S on September 24, 2021.
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