Yakuza Studios boss explains why Fist of the North Star doesn’t use the Dragon Engine

During last week’s Yakuza event, SEGA and Yakuza Studios revealed a Fist of the North game coming out in 2018. Many assumed that Fist of the North Star would use their brand new Dragon Engine, but it appears that it won’t be the case.

According to Yakuza Studios boss Toshihiro Nagoshi, Fist of the North Star will use their older engine from Yakuza Kiwami, and he explains why.

First off, the “Dragon Engine” is an in-development engine, and while it performs very well, it can be peaky and difficult to work with. Recently, there was a structural change at Sega Games and with it the team expanded, so a large number of staff that were not involved in the Yakuza project came in. Under such circumstances, given that things like the tools environment and development know-how of the earlier engine are complete compared to the Dragon Engine, it was more appropriate to use the earlier engine, which nevertheless has sufficient performance.

Hokuto ga Gotoku‘s graphics are realistic, but there is a bit of manga-esque shading called the toon shader. Considering that, they came to the conclusion that they should use the earlier engine rather than the Dragon Engine, which is more realistic and harder to work with.

Fist of the North Star is scheduled to be released on PS4 in Japan in 2018.

Via Gematsu