Yakuza Kiwami 3 and dark tie bring much-needed combat and visual upgrades
Blog Andrew Joseph 01 Oct , 2025 0
As a Yakuza fan, I've recommended the series from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, otherwise known as RGG, to plenty of people, but it has long come with one big caveat: Yakuza 3. It's not that there is anything necessary wrong with it, but with high-quality remakes of the first games in the series, and the more modern and refined graphics and gameplay of the newer entries, it has stood out a bit as a bit of an odd duck, looks worse than before and after the game. But, just announced Yakuza Kiwami 3 and dark tieIt's a dual package that combines the reshaped Yakuza 3 with a brand new companion game that may change. I had the chance to play in Tokyo Game Show 2025 and I was impressed by RGG Studio's attempt to improve and expand the original work.
Yakuza Kiwami 3
Yakuza Kiwami 3 is more than just a port on Rez; it's a complete remake. Everything from graphics to combat to new tailoring scenes and sound performances has been rebuilt, including some modern motion capture to better bring the characters to life. While it will still follow the Yakuza 3 story, some scenes will play or expand in different ways. It's an ambitious agenda, but it could be the right agenda to bring the 16-year-old game to a modern audience.
My practice began with Kazuma Kiryu chopping the wood outside the Morning Glory Orphanage, where he grew up and is now running in Okinawa. Modern graphics look great when he swings his axe, his sweat-glittering 4k (for someone like that). After the incident in Yakuza 2, he started with becoming Yakuza and tried to live a peaceful life in an orphanage. The eviction notice arrived and Kiryu headed to the town to face the head of the Ryudo family, the landowner who built the orphanage. He meets Rikiya Shimabukuro, a member of the Ryudo clan, and a natural argument goes on, giving us our first tasting Updated combat system.
Kiriyu has two fighting styles. The first is Dojima's Dragon, his classic quarrel style, which mixes punches, kicks, throws and ambient weapons such as street signs, traffic cones, and even weird bikes when opportunities arise. It is as flashy as ever and accuses Kiriyu's calories performing cruel terminators, such as smashing the chair on an opponent's chair (in this case Rikiya's head) never old. But when I switched to his brand new rukyu style, the real magic came. This style is rooted in Okinawan culture, and while using it, it is through a Kiryu combination of eight different weapons (such as a pair of tonfas, a weighted chain, or my personal favorite oar). I mixed all the above together enough to convince Rikiya to take me where to find his boss.
This gave me some open world exploration opportunities, I made the most of the street markets nearby, beat some ruffians with a crowbar, and had a quick golf mini game. Okinawa looks great on modern engines and is a breeze everywhere thanks to the new Street Surfer MK. 0, Kiryu seems to be able to summon from the thin air for quick joy. Zoom in that, jumped down, beat some fools with my Tiny Shield (also part of the Ryukyu suit) and then made a quick vacation in the best way.
Finally, I turned my attention to the main story. We were interrupted by the commotion when Rikiya accompanied me to his headquarters, when rival families discarded the local market and took the store owner hostage. He is a good guy Kiriyu who agrees to help, leading to a melee at around nine o'clock as he and Rikiya play the boss and his lackeys. This does show how much the battle evolved, as I was able to use smooth movements and dodges to create windows to defeat bad guys and escape, and to KO with a shaky double team of poor crony, being in a huge footstep on Kiryi's face while being bound by Rikiya.
My time in Yakuza Kiwami 3 ended, but I barely scratched the surface of everything new. There will be more personal moments, with supportive roles, working on daily operations in orphanages and taking care of children, and even a new team battle mode where you can build your own cycling gang to compete with others for the turf.
Dark tie
The bigger surprise announced by Yakuza Kiwami 3 is the reveal of Dark Ties, a brand new companion story. This gives you the role of Yakuza 3's rival Yoshitaka Mining. Dark -Ties covers my shameful businessman from my own tech startup to the rise of Kazuma foil of Busterld Boss in Yakuza 3.
His story begins with my life and the loneliness that drives him to pursue wealth and influence. By chance, he witnessed the deadly struggle between his rival Yakuza’s family and saw Daigo Dojima, a man willing to die for his boss, acted as the bond of the catalyst, setting out to see if he could find the same loyalty among the criminals.
My demo was conducted early in the game, and my demo followed the infamous Yakuza Tsuyoshi Kanda who had just been released from prison. The mine hopes Kanda will be his entry point, and although so does the Yakuza tradition, you won't go much until some punks decide to go to the battle. Apparently, my suitcase looks expensive and they want something inside. A bad decision.
The core combat system is roughly the same as the Yakuza 3, but with some major twists and turns. My fighting style is very different from Kiryu's, relying heavily on fast boxing combos, technical wrestling moves and new aerial attacks. He can jump in the chest and plant one foot, then jump to another, passing a series of flight actions, drop damage, such as a springboard jump kick or hollow tackle. They look so cool and provide you with some fun plans as you aim at the enemies you locked and jumped to.
In addition to the standard calorie meter for filling special actions, I have three locked hearts that fill up the fill as he lands the attack. Once at least one is full, he can activate a powerful polishing mode called Dark Awakening. It's like a new style of combat, with different movements that release powerful attacks. Multiple bound hearts can be activated immediately, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the Dark Awakening. It was a neat twist that made my gameplay even more unique and fit his character well in the anger behind his calm appearance.
Soon, these punks picked the wrong suitcases to try to snatch because my cheers for onlookers who witnessed the attempted robbery were meaningless. With the help of Ruffians processing, I had the option of heading to the prison to track Kanda or kill some time to explore the city. This sorry task seemed very important, so naturally I… went to the karaoke bar to sing songs immediately. Hey, it's Yakuza after all. I rented the room and I put his heart and soul into his solo performances, which was really fun because he was usually very strong. I nailed the rhythm to the buttons, providing the perfect performance for my talented person.
In my outstanding singing, I decided it was time to start a business, trying to take a taxi to the prison where Kanda was released. Another set of punks tried to stop me (no firefighter's carry and then a quick kick to the face wouldn't be resolved), and I found myself out of jail when Kanda was frustrated by his insignificant passion committee of two people. Kanda is gone, and his Yakuza family is a shame. My hands-on time ended as my tail passed through the streets of Kamurocho, like he walked around a corner and saw his future right-hand man for the first time.
As a fool of an organized crime story, I'm definitely interested in seeing more of our inner Vito Corleone and building his crime empire from scratch, especially when it means a proper Bromance time with me and Diago. The fact that it comes as part of the Yakuza Kiwami 3 packaging is great and I'm so happy to see everything when the Yakuza Kiwami 3 and Dark Ties were released on February 12, 2026.