Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties

Most Mixed-rated remakes earn that split rating from diffuse, hard-to-pin-down dissatisfaction. Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties is a genuinely unusual case: its 62.2% Steam rating across more than 2,100 reviews is driven by two specific, separately documented and largely unrelated problems, both raised consistently enough across the sample to treat as distinct rather than blending them into a single vague "fans are upset" narrative. RGG Studio's 11 February 2026 release bundles a full Dragon Engine remake of 2009's Yakuza 3 with an entirely new standalone prequel, Dark Ties, following series antagonist Yoshitaka Mine. Understanding both problems clearly, and what the review sample consistently praises alongside them, is what this review sets out to do.

What the remake gets technically right

Setting the two central controversies aside for a moment, the remake's technical execution draws real, consistent praise even from its harshest critics. "The game looks beautiful, runs very well on High graphics with 0 stutters. Ever since Gaiden they managed to perfect their Dragon Engine ports and I've encountered 0 technical issues," one detailed critical review states, crediting the studio's technical polish even while scoring the overall package negatively. Combat draws similarly specific praise as a genuine improvement: reworked fighting systems modernise what several reviewers describe as a dated, clunky original combat system, with multiple positive and negative reviews alike agreeing the moment-to-moment brawling feels better than the 2009 release.

Dark Ties, the bundled prequel chapter, draws the sample's most consistently positive specific praise of anything in the package. "Dark Ties main story is 3 hours length, but i literally" enjoyed every minute, one review states, scoring the prequel considerably higher than the main remake in the same breath. Another structures their entire review around exactly that gap: "Kiwami 3 - 6/10, Dark Ties - 8/10," a pattern repeated by multiple independent reviewers scoring the two halves of the bundle separately and consistently favouring the new content over the remake itself.

A widely acknowledged content reduction

The first of the two central problems concerns scope. "This is clearly a cash grab with the amount of ripped out content and Dark Ties being bare bones," one review states, and while that specific framing is one of the sample's sharper takes, the underlying factual claim — that substantial content was cut relative to the original and its earlier remaster — recurs across reviews regardless of overall recommendation. "They cut down a lot of content: Western [content], substories," one otherwise measured, technically-focused review notes matter-of-factly. Another, in one of the sample's more memorable lines: "0/10 remake they removed the worm from morning glory orphanage" — before adding, in an edit after fuller completion, that the specific content actually remained findable, a small but telling example of how quickly specific claims about what was or wasn't cut circulated and sometimes needed correcting within the community itself. The golf minigame's removal draws its own specific, repeated complaint: "no full golf minigame compared to [Yakuza 3 Remastered]," one review states plainly, a concrete, verifiable loss relative to an earlier, still-purchasable version of the same base game.

What's notable is how consistently even positive reviews concede this same point rather than disputing it. "I can confidently say Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties is a good game, not the best, not the worst in the series. I just feel like with so much change, especially in the side contents, this shouldn't be called Kiwami," one review states, recommending the game while explicitly agreeing with the underlying content-reduction complaint. Another: "I'm having fun and it's a good game so far however I do not think it's a good REPLACEMENT for Yakuza 3 — this game would be better if it were allowed to live alongside" the original rather than becoming the only available version, since SEGA reportedly delisted the earlier remaster from some storefronts following Kiwami 3's release.

A genuine, documented controversy

The second problem is more serious and independently verifiable through sourced press coverage rather than review sentiment alone. RGG Studio recast the character Hamazaki, using both the voice and physical likeness of actor Teruyuki Kagawa. Kagawa was accused of forcibly touching a woman in 2019; the allegation was reported by Japanese media (Shukan Shincho) in 2022, and Kagawa subsequently admitted to the misconduct publicly. A sustained fan campaign, organised under the hashtag #RemoveKagawa, specifically asked the studio not to proceed with casting him in the role. RGG Studio and SEGA did so regardless. Series director Ryosuke Horii addressed the backlash directly in press interviews rather than avoiding the subject, stating it would "certainly be safer not to recast them and avoid online criticism," but that the studio "felt there was no use being afraid" — a direct, on-record acknowledgment of the controversy rather than silence, even as the studio's substantive response was to proceed with the casting unchanged. Notably, official communications from the studio around this release period reference the issue having "happened two games running," suggesting this wasn't an isolated incident but part of a repeated pattern the studio has faced criticism for previously.

Reviewers raise this directly and specifically rather than in vague terms. "I tried. I really tried. Between #REMOVEKAGAWA and everything, I tried to hopefully lean on gameplay, but it ain't enough," one review states. Another, more pointedly: "I think it's a good game. If you ignore the fact that Hamazaki's face model and Rikiya got changed too then yeah lol." This review presents these as documented, sourced facts — the admission of misconduct, the casting decision, the campaign, and the studio's on-record response — rather than editorialising further on how a given buyer should weigh them; that judgment belongs to the individual reader.

A genuinely active studio, post-launch

To RGG Studio's credit on the purely technical front, support has continued well past launch: numbered patches 1.11 through 1.15 shipped over the months following release, addressing bugs and issues the community identified. That's a real, verifiable pattern of ongoing maintenance distinct from either of the controversies discussed above.

Where this leaves a buyer

At NZ$104.95, Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties delivers a technically excellent remake — smooth, stable, with genuinely improved combat — bundled with a new prequel chapter that draws some of the review sample's warmest specific praise. Weighed against that are two distinct, well-documented problems a prospective buyer should know about clearly rather than discover after purchase: a real, widely acknowledged reduction in side content relative to the original and its earlier remaster, and a genuine, sourced controversy over the studio's decision to recast a character with an actor who has publicly admitted to sexual misconduct, despite a direct, organised fan request not to. Existing series fans specifically drawn to Dark Ties' new story should know it's well-regarded on its own terms even by critics of the broader package; buyers for whom either the content cuts or the casting decision are significant factors should weigh them accordingly before purchasing.