If you’re in the UK or EU, you can pre-order any one of Sega’s new colognes right now for £29.99/29,56€, and they’re expected to start shipping next month. The Yakuza one (opens in new tab) apparently smells like a Yakuza chairman… so, cigarettes and whiskey highballs?

Smells like something new has landed! Introducing the Yakuza, Shenmue and Sonic the Hedgehog unisex Cologne from @numskulldesigns! With three awesome scents, which is your favourite?🇬🇧 https://t.co/aGsHocGJ5e | 🇪🇺 https://t.co/A1kRpyLrcf pic.twitter.com/2yrzFOxADmNovember 18, 2021

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“Created for the night, this bold and intriguing Yakuza/Ryū ga Gotoku ‘Bourbon and Smoke’ unisex cologne will have you smelling like the Tojo clan’s finest crime boss! This fragrance flaunts a deep and mysterious scent of antique oak, cedarwood, beeswax infused with smoky bourbon, leathery rose and scorching pimento,” reads the description.

If you’ve ever wondered what Sonic smells like, he’s apparently quite citrusy. The description for his official cologne (opens in new tab) describes “a blast of fresh citrus, a zing of grapefruit zest and exotic lemon and lime, topped with the scene of the ocean breeze and chilled melon fade.” Honestly, that’s probably preferable to the scent of an actual hedgehog (no offense to the spiny little guys).

Finally, Ryo Hazuki himself has his own Shenmue cologne now called ‘Tobacco and Gold’. The scent has notes of cardamom, bergamot orange, smoldering tobacco, orris root, and patchouli. “Rebellious and addictive, this exhilarating Shenmue ‘Tobacco and Gold’ unisex cologne hits all right smells to get the likes of Ryo Hazuki nodding in appreciation,” the description reads.

Once you’ve got your cool red suit and Yakuza scent sorted, here are the best games of 2021 (so far) to stay inside and play.

The post Sega launches Sonic, Yakuza, and Shenmue colognes appeared first on Game News.

Recent advances in both game development technology and platform processing power allow tattoos to be more detailed and realistic than ever. That’s a huge part of the reason why games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Cyberpunk 2077 have such beautiful, intricate, and realistic ink. But it’s not just improved visuals that make a good game tattoo. 

As evidenced by the beautiful Japanese traditional tattoos designed for the Yakuza series by legendary tattoo artist Horitomo, a keen understanding of tattoo culture and the process of tattooing can make video game tattoos standout pieces of art and worldbuilding, whether it offers in-depth character backgrounds, customization options, or immersion by way of ink. The three games highlighted here are setting new standards when it comes to in-game tattoos. 

Fictional future tattoos 

Variety and attention to detail are crucial when creating an immersive game, particularly one that lets you customize your characters with tattoos. With a world as vast as Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red had their work cut out for them. Cyberpunk 2077 has some of the best variety of video game tattoos, with multiple genres of ink represented – including traditional Japanese tattoos and the red-and-black sticker book motif seen on Judy Alvarez. 

“In the world of Night City, personal style is extremely important,” says Waldek Kamiński, senior concept artist at CD Projekt Red. “There is room for a ton of badass designs in many different styles, so while creating new tattoos I could constantly be asking myself ‘Is this cool? Would someone like or choose to have a tattoo like this?'”

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Those questions help make the world of Night City feel more rich and lived-in, as its occupants’ tattoos are a direct reflection of the society Cyberpunk 2077 is trying to depict. “You have to be asking yourself a number of important questions to help guide the design from start to finish: ‘Where is the tattoo gonna be on the body? Why did this NPC decide to have this tattoo? How will the player react to seeing this in-game? What will they think about this character when they do see it? Does this tattoo fit the character’s personality? Is this cool? Does this design fit the style/art direction of the game?’ and so on,” Kamiński explains. “I think, most importantly, you need to make sure that whatever you create fits the game world, and the character you’re designing the ink for. It needs to feel like a natural fit.”

That thought process is carried all throughout Cyberpunk 2077, from the lowly NPCs that occupy Night City’s streets to powerful allies such as Judy Alvarez. In the case of Alvarez, CDPR wanted her tattoos to be meaningful – to not only give you a sense of her place in the world, but an idea of who she was before she befriended V. “First, we decided what style of tattoos would be the best fit for her – scattered around the body, only two colors, etc. Second, we took her background as a diver and made sure that was reflected in her ink through a sea motif, including a shark and some seahorses,” says Kamiński. “Judy is a really mysterious character, especially when you first meet her. V needs to spend time with her to learn about her past, her ideals, who she is as a person, so I wanted to transmit that air of mystery in her tattoos, too.”

Viking ink 

Where CDPR used ink as a way of immersing you in the world of Night City and to reflect the broad nature of body modification in Cyberpunk 2077, Ubisoft Montreal was faced with a different challenge. In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, an impressive selection of Viking-style tattoos was introduced to help players craft their own version of Eivor. While these were well-received by fans, the designs almost didn’t make it into the final game. During production, Ubisoft tried desperately to find historical evidence that Vikings even had tattoos. It was only when the team discovered an account from Muslim historian Ahmad ibn Fadlan, that spoke of a Scandinavian people covered in markings, that the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla team was able to continue their tattoo design work. 

“The markings were very interlaced designs, Celtic patterns, the kind where if you look at it too much your head’s gonna explode,” says Nicolas Rivard, art director for visual conception at Ubisoft Montreal. “I did some of those, I was throwing some challenges to myself, making mood boards and briefs for more talented people who can do real illustration. I tried to do an interlaced pattern and oh boy, man, I had my painkiller bottle next to me.”

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Along with the complex interlaced designs seen in historical Viking carvings and artwork, the team drew inspiration from animals, which were also heavily represented in art from that time period. “The crows, the wolves, even some legendary creatures. We had very good information, so we went with that. The first tattoo designs were as close as possible to that benchmark and those guidelines,” Rivard says, before explaining that this was only the beginning of the process. “We want our players to have more than enough to choose from, a lot of our player base love cosplaying as their character, or dressing their character up and going to explore. I don’t know if you saw the pictures that came from the community… it’s insane, man. So we wanted them to have more tattoos.”

That’s why you’ll see that some of Eivor’s available tattoos look like body paint or runes, rather than what is considered to be more traditional Viking tattoos. It’s also why Ubisoft is still adding more tattoo options long after launch, including several that were designed by fans (opens in new tab). By offering players a chance to decorate their Eivor in (mostly) historically accurate ink, Ubisoft gives players myriad options in terms of expression. “Adding as much choice as possible for customizing your character enhances the roleplay aspect. Roleplay for us means immersion, and immersion is what makes a game great,” says Rivard. “The settlement is your home, you can customize your gear, your ship, your horse, and your mount. But the tattoos feel really personal… you’re really in communion with the character, putting those tattoos on and seeing the results. People hide their hard-earned armor sets so you see their tattoos!”

The Japanese tattoo legend 

The tattoos in the Yakuza series not only help establish the setting, but add a layer of unspoken development to its characters. Yakuza features some of the most impressive tattoo work I’ve ever seen in games, and that’s because Sega was smart enough to get a man named Horitomo (opens in new tab) involved. Horitomo is a legendary tattoo artist based in California who specializes in traditional Japanese tattoos called tebori, where tattoos are applied by hand using needles fastened to bamboo sticks. 

Before Horitomo came to America, he was doing traditional Japanese tattoos in Yokohama – it was there that he was approached by two producers from Sega. “They asked me to design a tattoo for a game character. They had read an interview I had done for a tattoo magazine and were impressed that I was a Japanese tattoo artist who was studying traditional Japanese tattoos, instead of western styles which were wildly popular in Japan at the time. It was rare to find a tattoo artist studying the traditions of the Japanese tattoo. I guess that impressed them,” says Horitomo, who has designed pieces for Kazuma Kiryu, Akira Nishikiyama, and Yakuza Like a Dragon lead, Ichiban Kasuga, among many others.

Japanese tattoos often depict symbols from woodblock prints, like tigers, koi carp, oni, ghosts, cherry blossoms, and more. Japanese tattoos are incredibly meaningful and often tell a story about the tattooed person in question. So, when it came to designing Ichiban Kasuga’s tattoo, Horitomo proposed a Ryugyo design. “A picture of the fish on its way to becoming a dragon,” he explains. “I felt that it was the perfect motif for that character based on his backstory.”

That level of realism and consideration isn’t just in the design of the tattoos but extends to the tattooing process depicted in the Yakuza series. In Yakuza 0, both Kazuma Kiryu and Akira Nishikiyama have sujibori – the black outlines of tattoos that will eventually be completely colored in. Both their stories and their tattoos are in their infancy, so this design choice tells a clear character story. And the presence of sujibori instead of a completely finished tattoo is also a realistic representation of the Japanese tattooing process. “Traditional Japanese tattoos cover large areas of the body, sometimes the whole body. This cannot be done in one sitting. It can take years to complete just one body part, such as the back where it starts at your shoulders and ends mid-thigh. Traditionally it is done by hand, as well,” Horitomo says. “So to keep with the immersive realism of the Yakuza game series, it only made sense to also make the tattoo progression realistic as well. I feel it really enhances the reality of the game.”

Tattoos can make or break a game’s sense of place. The ones highlighted here are prime examples of the storytelling and world-building power of well-researched and beautifully designed tattoos. Cyberpunk 2077’s tattoos help immerse you in the fictional Night City, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s ink lets players customize their own historically accurate Viking, and Yakuza’s ink provides detailed character backgrounds without saying a word. Video game tattoos can do a lot of narrative heavy lifting and fuel immersion. And they look damn cool while doing it.

Since you’ve got ink on the mind, check out the best tattoos in games. 

The post How Assassins Creed Valhalla, Cyberpunk 2077, and Yakuza set new standards for in-game tattoos appeared first on Game News.

If you’re unfamiliar with the story, it’s a wild one. On April 1, 2019, the video below premiered from Yakuza developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, giving the world a look at the turn-based gameplay of the next game in the series. As you can see, protagonist Ichiban Kasuga steps up to confront some street thugs with a brand new RPG-based gameplay system.

Thing is, it was all a prank from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. As was revealed afterwards, the gameplay reveal above was never meant to be anything more than a joke. So how come it actually ended up representing the final product, when Yakuza: Like a Dragon would release months later in Japan?

It turns out that the audience loved the fake gameplay reveal so much that Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio changed Yakuza: Like a Dragon, switching it from an action game to a turn-based battler. So from April 2019, when the prank first aired, to January 2020, when Like a Dragon launched in Japan, the developer was actually busy retooling their entire gameplay system because the prank went down way better than anyone could’ve anticipated. All of this is revealed in the brilliant interview below with Yakuza series producer Toshihiro Nagoshi, by Archipel on YouTube.

As Nagoshi reveals in the interview, many people somehow assumed they were already making a turn-based RPG when the April Fool’s video was released. After the video though, the team pivoted immediately to the RPG formula, with Nagoshi remarking with a wry smile that “hurrying to make things is sort of a characteristic of the Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio.”

There are some game development stories that just make your jaw drop, and this is very much one of them. To think that the entire team at Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio abandoned the established gameplay that they spent nearly two decades refining, to chase something entirely new in less than a year is mind-boggling.

But, it paid off. Yakuza: Like a Dragon has generally been received very well by critics and fans alike, acting as a major launch title for the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S in the west. Having spent well over 60 hours with Ichiban Kasuga and company, I can firmly say Like a Dragon is fantastic. If you’re after some more elaborate thoughts, head over to our Yakuza: Like a Dragon review.

If you’re still working your way through the brand new RPG adventure from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, check out our Yakuza: Like a Dragon tips for essential info.

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Thankfully, it’s easy to swap voice languages in the middle of a playthrough. I played with Japanese voices for 10 or 15 minutes and everything was right in the world. Then I realized I was just doing the comfortable thing. It would have been more comfortable if Yakuza: Like a Dragon still had its trusty old protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, or didn’t totally change up its combat system, but here we are. This is a time to give new things I shot. And besides, this is the first Yakuza game with a full English dub since Mark Hamill oozed malice as Goro Majima (opens in new tab) in the original. That has to at least be worth a try.

Yakuza’s localization has come a long way since 2006. Like a Dragon follows the same model set forth in Judgment, the last game from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio: the English subtitles and the English voice script diverge in points to play to the strength of both mediums. After I overcame my purist sneering, I was able to appreciate the English voice work. It feels as natural as one could expect, the characters are distinct, and the script itself deftly rides that trademark Yakuza line between melodrama, oddball humor, and genuinely touching conversations.

I’m probably going to stick with Japanese in the full game, but I already know there will be some moments that make me miss the English: the little conversations your party members can have out in the world, for example, which wouldn’t require a quick reading break if I could just listen to what they were saying. That feeling of wandering around a Japanese city is a big part of Yakuza’s appeal for me, though, and it isn’t quite the same when nobody’s speaking the language. Yakuza: Like a Dragon’s Yokohama is a lovely place to wander.

Take in the sights

Yakuza has always been a fantastic Japanese tourism simulator, and there’s never been a better time to take a walk around its rendition of Yokohama than in the travel-starved time of late 2020. Don’t be fooled: this is not a tourism-board-approved destination. The rivers are full of garbage and slick with oil, half of the buildings are run down, and forgotten people try to live as best they can in encampments on the side of the street. It isn’t played for gritty shocks or cynical humor, thank God. It’s just life.

Wandering the streets feels different with a party of four following you everywhere you go. There was something to be said for the lonely-in-a-crowd feeling of late nights in Kamurocho, but it’s nice to have company too. And as always, there are plenty of new folks to meet out on the streets. There are people in need of a rescue, surprisingly charismatic crawfish, and the owner of a classic movie theater who can’t stand when people fall asleep in the middle of a movie.

If that last example sounds oddly specific, it’s because it leads directly into what may be Yakuza: Like a Dragon’s strangest new minigame: our new hero Kasuga Ichiban is terrible at staying awake during movies. In order to take in each classic film and absorb its character-building (and stat-building) message, you have to fight off legions of “REM Rams” who pop up in the seats around him and try to lull him to sleep. You do this by pounding their respective buttons in time, while avoiding the “Alarm Cock” roosters who want to help you. Yakuza doesn’t usually get quite this surrealist, but this is also a game where you summon rains of crawfish to pinch and poison your enemies.You can’t always lean on your crustacean friends.  

Roll through the fights

Most of the time, you handle street brawls with your fists (or bats, or umbrellas, or whatever weapons your party members have equipped). Either way, it’s all managed with a turn-based combat system. It still looks like the usual Yakuza combat, with the belligerents circling around and grabbing junk off the street to clobber each other, but it plays like a turn-based JRPG.

A Persona-style button menu offers quick access to standard attacks, special skills, and so on. The specifics of how each character fights are determined by their current Job; that’s a Job both in the Final Fantasy sense of something that gives you special abilities and influences stats, and a Job in the sense that they’re all part-time work (your entire party in Yakuza: Like a Dragon is eternally broke). You might naturally gravitate toward ass-kicking Bodyguards and Enforcers for their combat strength, but trust me when I say a Chef or a Hostess can kick just as much ass with their tricks of the trade.

Turn-based battles are another big change for Yakuza, and after rolling through a boss battle and about a dozen street fights, I’m… fine with it? I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t typically enjoy traditional JRPG combat, but at least Like a Dragon’s fights move quickly. I also appreciate the in-fiction explanation that our new hero isn’t a one-man, mob-demolishing army like the last one was, so he has to coordinate with his allies. I’m not sure I’m having more fun this way, mind, but it works. I’m glad the developers are trying new things after a decade of incremental changes.

That’s where I am now. The brief time I had with a pre-release version of Yakuza: Like a Dragon was never going to be enough to convince me that I’ll enjoy the new voice acting options, the new hero, the new battles more than the ones that I’m already so deeply invested in. It was enough to make me excited to see more.

I love it when longstanding franchises keep reinventing themselves. It’s thrilling to have no idea where the Yakuza after this one is going to go. What other old standbys will it replace? What new ideas from Like a Dragon will it set aside? Will Kasuga still be the main hero, or is this the start of a new age of rotating protagonists? I’ve never been more excited to be a Yakuza fan.

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