A CRIME STORY WRITTEN IN NEON
Halfway through Yakuza 0, I began dreading the fact that it would eventually end, and that I would never again be able to experience it for the first time. I realized I had stumbled upon something truly special. The most captivating stories tend to have effects of sustained tension, uncertainty, and excitement on me. It felt as though bad things could happen to anyone in Yakuza 0, and that no one’s plot armor was intact.
The outcome is set in stone, and your choices do not matter. You have to accept the hand you’re dealt. As a result, the creators grant themselves full agency to tell one of the richest, most unpredictable, and best-directed stories I’ve experienced in a video game. All we can do is watch, and hope nothing terrible happens to the characters we’ve grown attached to.
It’s a highly cinematic crime drama told across several chapters. You alternate control of two young men from a third-person perspective, brawling your way through the seedy streets of Japanese nightlife districts.
Every two chapters, the perspective switches between the two charismatic leads, Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima, both affiliated with the Tojo Clan. Their shared condition is exile: each is struggling to find his way back into an organization that cast him out. Kiryu’s story paints him as a scapegoat in a web of deceit and power struggles, all hidden behind the Yakuza’s so-called “code of honor.”
Majima, the one-eyed “Mad Dog of Shimano,” receives one of the best character introductions I’ve ever seen in a game. Already infamous within the organization, he seeks redemption after being brutally punished for disobedience. When his story begins, he’s managing a cabaret club—both a livelihood and a means of funneling money back to the family that abandoned him.
Both narratives are centerad around a Tokyo back alley of mysterious importance: the Empty Lot. Located at the very heart of the game map, it draws every major player toward it until their paths inevitably collide. Whoever controls the Empty Lot is destined to become the head of the entire organization. Until then, the rules are simple: win or be crushed.
The game unfolds over several months in the late 1980s, during Japan’s bubble economy, in the fictional districts of Kamurocho and Sotenbori. The streets are dense, claustrophobic, and overwhelming. Neon signs flicker endlessly, crowds push in from all sides, and commercial excess assaults the senses. The sheer level of detail borders on dizzying, reinforcing the feeling that this is a world where it’s hard to think straight.
I’ve never been to Japan, but I have no trouble believing claims that the Yakuza series captures urban life perfectly. All dialogue is delivered in Japanese, with English subtitles only, further grounding the experience. It’s a world of non-stop entertainment and consumption, controlled by unseen figures at the top who profit endlessly from the workers below.
Part of the game’s brilliance lies in how effortlessly it allows you to inhabit both sides of this world. You can engage in everyday pleasures and then plunge headfirst into deadly power struggles. The abundance of mini-games—pool, disco dancing, pocket racing, and later full-fledged business management—would each have made perfect sense as standalone titles in earlier console generations.
You can even visit arcades and play fully emulated versions of Out Run, Space Harrier, and other classic SEGA cabinets. If you came for a crime drama, you’ll soon realize you’ve received an entire cultural archive alongside it.
The razor-sharp tension of the main narrative is contrasted with absurd sidequests scattered throughout the city. Presented through text-heavy cutscenes, exaggerated gestures, and occasional one-word voice clips, they feel charmingly old-school.
These substories offer everyday life lessons taken to such grotesque extremes that they become hilarious. The protagonists’ stoic seriousness only heightens the comedy. One moment you’re helping a street performer distract a crowd so he can run to the bathroom. Another, you’re instructing a dominatrix in how to be cruel, because she’s simply too kind-hearted for her line of work.
Such extreme tonal shifts could easily undermine the main story, but here the developers show remarkable control over pacing. Chapters alternate between free roaming and tightly scripted sequences, giving the drama room to breathe without ever losing momentum. And they add layers of relatability to the characters the main quest otherwise fails to provide.
Combat is the one area where the player enjoys complete expressive freedom. The brawling system is fast, brutal, and flamboyant, recalling games like Devil May Cry. Both Kiryu and Majima wield three distinct fighting styles, each expandable through monetary investment. Almost anything in the environment can become a weapon, leading to spectacular and often vicious finishers.
These sudden eruptions of violence feel almost Tarantino-esque, elevating the narrative tension with raw physicality. The weight and impact of each blow expose the rage simmering beneath the characters’ composed exteriors. The flexibility of the system allows every player to settle into a preferred style, and crucially, no approach is ever invalid.
Despite the overwhelming density of systems and activities, it’s the characters that dominate the experience. Kiryu and Majima are outsiders, damaged, isolated men you instinctively root for. Kiryu’s stoicism feels like armor, protecting a man who hasn’t yet found his place in the world.
Majima, however, is the game’s emotional pillar. Trapped in perpetual performance, he leans into the “Mad Dog” persona even as it distances him from his ultimate goal. The more he tries to escape that role, the more it consumes him. Supporting characters receive the same care, their motivations clear and their fates often devastating. More than once, I found myself close to tears.
Yakuza 0 left me uneasy in the best possible way. How do you return to lesser narrative experiences after this? How do you accept stiff animation or perfunctory cutscenes when you’ve seen what’s possible? This might be the first video game that bothered to animate a character removing his shoes before entering a home. In video games, that is more remarkable than the act of killing.
It also raises a larger question: is player agency over story outcomes always desirable? Who decided that every game must place the fate of the world in our hands? Yakuza 0 argues otherwise. If you have a deeply personal story to tell, tell it with conviction. Don’t dilute it by letting the player break it.
Not every story ends happily. And in real life, they all end the same way.
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