Category: IGN

IGN: What did you think when you heard that Mr Kamiya would be leaving PlatinumGames?

Koyama: I felt that his leaving was a loss for the game industry. Had his games not been fun, perhaps I wouldn’t have thought about it. We can look back on it and laugh now, but at the time, Kamiya looked unusually serious.

Kamiya: It’s not as if I was feeling sad about my own future. I felt bad for the company’s staff I would be leaving behind by exiting the company and my team, and by leaving my positions as game director and vice president. This may sound conceited, but I was in a position where I shouldered quite a lot at PlatinumGames. From my perspective, I left the company based on my own convictions as a creator, but I’m sure that others also saw it as a selfish act. I felt very sorry about that.

Koyama: Kamiya didn’t have any plans at all following his departure from PlatinumGames. He was saying things like, “Maybe I’ll go back to my family’s home and wipe down the floors there.” So I said, “If you ever want to make another game, please contact me. I come from a farming family, so let’s make games in your free time outside of planting and harvesting rice. I might not be able to pay you a salary, but I can at least send you some rice!”

Kamiya: I was happy when Koyama told me he’d send me rice. I mean, I was thinking, “How could there possibly be a company that’d take in an industry troublemaker who’s constantly spewing venom on X like me?” But maybe this unemployable guy would still be able to make ends meet if Koyama sent me rice. Of course, it wasn’t rice he ended up making for me, but rather a company!

IGN: Mr Koyama, will you mainly be working as a manager as the CEO of Clovers, or will you still be involved in game development?

Koyama: Yes, I will be working as the company’s president, but I’ll continue to be a game designer as well. While I am new to being a company president, I feel like I’ve been able to do a good job thanks to the help of the other members of the company around me.

Kamiya: I don’t know what I’d do without Koyama’s ability to handle that kind of work. I’m clueless when it comes to the management side, so my primary job will be creating games. I’m able to let him handle the parts of running a business that I’m not capable of doing myself. I’ve never once felt concerned. I’m very grateful to have someone like him with talents that even stretch outside of game development. I’d like to rely on him as the company’s president, and I also highly value his abilities as a creator, so I have high hopes for his future as a game designer.

IGN: Your studio’s name, Clovers, brings to mind Clover Studio, which was responsible for the original Okami and other titles and where Kmaiya used to work. Can you tell us how you decided on this name?

Koyama: As I mentioned earlier, I come from a family of farmers, so I first thought about a company name that had to do with agriculture. It seemed that Kamiya had some concerns about my ability to come up with a good name, though.

Kamiya: His sense for names is rather unique, you see… That’s when I proposed that we name the company Clovers.

Koyama: We ended up going with his very first suggestion as-is. At first, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Clover Studio, which Kamiya was previously a part of. We were going out of our way to create a new company, so I was reluctant to have a company name that looked back to the past.

Kamiya: I may have some fond feelings for Clover Studio because of titles like Okami, but Koyama doesn’t have that history.

Koyama: I was able to empathize with Kamiya’s explanation for the name, though. If you break down the name Clovers you get “C” and “lovers.” The C in Clovers stands in part for “creativity,” something that all of us love. Also, when thinking about the company’s philosophy, in reference to a four-leaf clover, we began to talk about being a group with four guiding Cs, as in “C-lovers.” Our company’s logo is four interconnected Cs in the shape of a clover, as I think you can tell by looking at it.

Kamiya: We decided on three of the four Cs right away: Challenge, Creativity and Craftsmanship.

Kamiya: While things went smoothly up to here, we had trouble figuring out the fourth and last C. Too many positive words that begin with the letter C, so we didn’t know which to pick. That’s when Koyama had the idea, “How about we don’t decide on the fourth C, and leave it up to each of our new members to decide what the final C means to them personally?”

Koyama: That’s why we share three of the Cs as a company, while the fourth is thought up by each of our employees when they join the company, and we have them write down their reasons. Clovers now has a system where new hires choose their own fourth C the day they join the company. [The fourth C is also discussed in this way on Clovers’ website.]

IGN: What words did the two of you choose for that fourth C?

Kamiya: I’ve made my fourth C “Curiosity.” It’s always been what has driven me forward in my game design.

Koyama: I made my fourth C “Cleanness,” to show my desire to always be sincere in my work and towards business partners. Within the company, you have everything from people who make their fourth C “Century,” striving to create titles that will last for a hundred years, to stylish types who made theirs “Coffee Break.”

Kamiya: By having everyone choose their own fourth C, it makes them even more aware of themselves as creators. I think Clovers is a good name for the company we want to become, as it stands for our desire to be a group that loves that fourth C.

IGN: Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami often talks about wanting to focus on helping young talent to bloom. Mr Kamiya, as someone who came up under Mikami, how do you feel about that idea?

Kamiya: I was able to work as a director for the first time on Resident Evil 2 thanks to Mr Mikami’s guidance. The offer shocked me because it was only my second year after joining Capcom, but within a fraction of a second I told him I’d do it. There’s no question that I’ve also inherited what you might call this kind of “Mikami-ism,” and at PlatinumGames I’d actively give direction work to promising young employees even if they didn’t have experience as a director. That’s why I’d like to continue to give opportunities to young talent at Clovers.

IGN: Your new website mentions that you are recruiting, but what kind of staff are you looking for?

Koyama: We believe that people who can relate to our three Cs – Challenge, Creativity and Craftsmanship – will be a good fit for Clovers.

Kamiya: I think that things like taking on a challenge, being creative or having a craftsmanlike mentality are not things you only do because you’re told to do them. I feel that people who naturally have that kind of mindset and passion for creativity are the ones who fit in with us. In fact, the members who have joined Clovers so far are exactly like that. I hope to maintain that concentration and expand it even further.

I can’t do anything alone. We have team members who draw artwork, others who turn it into 3D models, or who add movement, or who add sound and music, and people who program and finalize the output. Thanks to this combination of people, a game can grow into a wonderful work that exceeds my imagination; miracles are born, and players can enjoy the end result. Just like with game development, as we start a company from scratch this time, I really feel the importance of people’s support. The current staff also came to Clovers without knowing what would happen, and I am so grateful to them for that. I wanted to leave that feeling of gratitude in a tangible form, so we took a group photo of all the Clovers staff. It was a sobering feeling once again. I’m sure they are not without anxiety, but they seem to be enjoying the process of building something from scratch, and that makes me feel really confident. I would be happy to create something with people who can enjoy taking on this challenge together.

This interview was conducted by Daniel Robson, Chief Editor of IGN Japan, and the article was written by Ryuchi Kataoka, a freelance writer for IGN Japan. It was translated by Ko Ransom.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

There are differences, of course, but the shape of the building, its position on the street, the large front door, and the balcony directly above it all match. Shangri-La is also a distinctively older looking building than most in Kamurocho.

If it is in fact Shangri-La, this would make the main street seen in the Project Century trailer East Taihei Boulevard, just along the road from where the Millenium Tower now stands and the home of Kobuki Drugs.

Details are still slim on Project Century but it seems similar in style to the Yakuza / Like a Dragon games, with lots of street fights and, well, actual yakuza walking around. Sticking to this theme would therefore make Tokyo’s red light district, once again, a perfect setting for Project Century.

Is Project Century a Yakuza / Like a Dragon game?

This raises the question of canon, as while Project Century is set in 1915 and therefore 90 years before Yakuza 1, it could still be set in the same universe and timeline. The Yakuza / Like a Dragon series time hops plenty already, with prequel Yakuza 0 going back to 1988 and some cutscenes going back decades earlier.

Yakuza gangs were active during this time period too, so despite its much earlier presence it could easily be about the Japanese underworld. The main family in the Yakuza / Like a Dragon series, the Tojo Clan, has never had its origins explored either, perhaps presenting an opportunity to do so here.

Project Century could still be set within the Yakuza / Like a Dragon canon without technically being a Yakuza / Like a Dragon game, however. RGG Studio has done this before with Judgement and Lost Judgement, a series set within the same world but featuring (mostly) different characters and a different story.

Some fans even think it’s linked to Judgement directly. “Genuinely think it may be Judgement: Isshin,” said crazyred88 on Reddit. Like a Dragon: Isshin is the somewhat confusingly non-canon Yakuza / Like a Dragon game that is essentially a piece of historical fiction featuring characters from the modern setting games.

“That’s what I’m thinking too,” said Shattered_Sans. “The protagonist looks similar enough. It could be to Judgement what Isshin is to Like a Dragon.” This theory is backed up by RGG Studio previously declaring Yakuza / Like a Dragon its turn-based role-playing game franchise and Judgement its action game franchise, and Project Century is very clearly the latter.

Who is the main character of Project Century?

But is the protagonist of Project Century, presumably the man we see beating up baddies in the trailer, an alternate history version of Takayuki Yagami from the Judgement series? The trailer only shows a single shot of his face, so it’s still hard to say, but some fans certainly think so.

Other theories exist too, of course, with the most common comparison being made between the protagonist and the actor who played protagonist Kiryu Kazuma in the 2007 live action adaptation of Yakuza / Like a Dragon, Kazuki Kitamura.

“He looks like Kazuki Kitamura, who played Kiryu in the first movie,” said SomeChunkyMilk on Reddit. “He’s my guess. The nose and the hair look pretty damn similar.” FarEast_Frez chimed in too: “He’s quite tall as well, which would probably help with the mocap since the character looked quite tall.”

This would mean he wasn’t Yagami, of course, who’s played by Takuya Kimura. Like a Dragon: Isshin previously brought over all the characters one for one, with the same models and voice actors and so on, so this would dissuade the Judgement Isshin theory.

Others, again, point to a completely fresh character though: the founding member of the Tojo Clan. ” I wonder if it’s the first Tojo patriarch, the one who takes Kamurocho under his control and establishes the family, then later the Tojo Clan,” said Hold-My-Sake on Reddit. “Dude if this is legit the progenitor of the Tojo Clan I will actually eat a shoe,” added Terrible_Guidance599.

Is Project Century a Dragon Engine game?

Whoever he is, the protagonist of Project Century is much more violent than the likes of Kiryu or Yagami. Despite having beaten up thousands of people and taken down helicopters with rocket launchers and so on, Kiryu has officially never killed someone. The same can’t be said after 90 seconds of this new protagonist, who’s stabbing baddies with crowbars and ripping out their innards.

This is notable for other reasons though; the current Dragon Engine has so far been used to create Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, Yakuza Kiwami 2, Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, Judgement, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Lost Judgement, Like a Dragon: Ishin, Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, and the upcoming Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, for a total of 11 games over eight years.

It’s therefore getting a touch outdated, something RGG Studio has admitted already, and its technical director Yutaka Ito said just last month he’s finally eager to make a new engine for use on current consoles. All of the aforementioned Yakuza / Like a Dragon games, including the 2025 release of Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, are available on the PlayStation 4 generation.

Fans are debating whether Project Century is, or is not, a Dragon Engine game. “It’s like they pushing the Dragon engine to its limit, even for RGG standard this is insane,” Reddit user honoyom said, but was refuted by AnyImpression6 who thought it was Unreal Engine 5.

Others pointed out that Project Century is already reusing animations from other RGG Studio games though, something that’s fairly common practice. “Like four of the combat animations are straight from the other games too,” said AppealToReason16. “I knew it was an RGG game before the name reveal at that first movement.”

RGG Studio does make clear the trailer footage is pre-alpha, however, meaning very early in development. RGG Studio has otherwise made clear it favors the Dragon Engine for its ability to produce a realistic atmosphere for cities at night time. It could therefore make sense that, for Project Century, which doesn’t feature the bright lights of modern day Tokyo, RGG Studio would be more comfortable stepping away from the Dragon Engine in favor of something more technologically advanced.

Fans will just have to wait patiently for answers to all of these questions. Project Century is probably still a while away given it doesn’t have a title yet, and RGG Studio is currently developing Virtua Fighter 6 and Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii alongside Project Century.

It is known for its unbelievably speedy development times, however. In the last five years, for example, its released Yakuza 4 Remastered, Yakuza 5 Remastered, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Judgment Remastered, Lost Judgment, Like a Dragon: Ishin, Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, alongside three Super Monkey Ball Games and an enhanced remaster of Virtua Fighter 5. That’s 12 games in total.

In our 9/10 review of the last RGG Studio release, IGN said: “Sprawling, enthralling, and packed with dynamic brawling, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth isn’t just the best turn-based Like a Dragon game, it’s one of the greatest games in the entire series.”

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.