Stranger Than Heaven at TGS 2026

SEGA and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio opened Tokyo Game Show 2026 with a September 16 livestream showing new footage from Stranger Than Heaven, alongside a playable demo on the show floor. The action-adventure game is a distant prequel to the Like a Dragon franchise, following Japanese-American outcast Makoto Daito over 50 years as he rises to become the founder of the Tojo Clan. It launches January 15, 2027, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam, with day-one availability on Xbox Game Pass.

Five cities, five decades

The story moves through five Japanese cities across five eras: Kokura, Fukuoka in 1915; Kure, Hiroshima in 1929; Minami, Osaka in 1943; Atami, Shizuoka in 1951; and Shinjuku, Tokyo in 1965. Players take control of Daito, voiced by Yu Shirota, as he stows away on a ship from San Francisco to Japan in search of a new life. His path crosses rival Yu Shinjo, voiced by Dean Fujioka, and the smuggler Orpheus, voiced by Snoop Dogg, who takes Daito under his wing and introduces him to the criminal underworld. The September 16 stream focused on the game's first three destinations, Kokura, Kure, and Minami, with the remaining two eras still to be detailed further.

Independent limb combat and music mechanics

Stranger Than Heaven drops the button-mashing brawler style of past Like a Dragon games for a slower, more deliberate combat system. Players control Daito's left and right sides independently, timing strikes, blocks, and counters, and can equip a range of upgradeable melee weapons that carry real weight behind every swing.

Music runs through the rest of the game too. Daito picks up sounds as he explores, a sweeping broom, a passing train, then works with composers he meets along the way to turn them into original tracks. He also takes on work as a showman, booking musicians, planning setlists, and handling promotion for shows across each era. Side activities round out the world: arm wrestling and dice betting in Kokura, card games elsewhere, and shooting galleries further along Daito's journey.