is a 2015 action-adventure game developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and published by Sega. It is the sixth main installment in the Yakuza series and a prequel to the original game. It was released for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 in Japan in March 2015, and in North America and Europe for PlayStation 4 in January 2017. It was released on Windows on 1 August 2018 and on Xbox One on 26 February 2020. An enhanced version, titled was released for Nintendo Switch 2 on 5 June 2025; it later released on other platforms on December 8 of that year.
Set in late 1988 during Japan's bubble era and seventeen years before the events of the first game, the story follows Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima as they get embroiled in a conflict between various Yakuza factions for control of a patch of land known as the "Empty Lot".
The game received generally favorable reviews from critics, and is largely responsible for the franchise's rise in popularity and sales in the West, with the series considered obscure beforehand. Yakuza 0 was followed up by the title Yakuza Kiwami, which was a remake of the original game and the next chronological installment of the series.
Gameplay Yakuza 0 is an action-adventure game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective. The game takes place from December 1988 to January 1989, in Kamurochō and Sotenbori, fictionalized recreations of Tokyo's Kabukichō and Osaka's Dōtonbori areas respectively. The player controls series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu and recurring character Goro Majima, alternating between the two at predetermined points during the story.
Players can freely walk around Kamurochō and Sotenbori, interacting with people they meet to trigger side-quests, battling enemies who attack them on the street, or playing several minigames, including fully playable versions of Sega arcade games such as Out Run, Super Hang-On, Space Harrier, and Fantasy Zone. Completing certain objectives, such as eating every dish at a restaurant or reaching a target score in a minigame, will also grant the player special Completion Point currency; these Completion Points can be spent at a shrine to receive additional bonuses, such as special items or character upgrades.
The character leveling system is similar to the system from Ryu ga Gotoku Ishin!, with abilities bought off of a skill tree that is gradually unlocked during the game. Instead of using experience points to buy skills, the player uses money acquired from fights or side activities. Money is more liberally awarded in Yakuza 0 than in previous entries, with every heavy attack causing enemies to drop cash. Because of this, items, including healing items, in shopping centres are generally more expensive. The player can lose their money if they encounter special enemies called Mr. Shakedown, who are more difficult compared to average street enemies. If the player is beaten, they will lose all their cash, but can beat the enemy again to earn back their money, with a bonus for defeating him.
Kiryu and Majima also have side businesses that they run during the game to farm money: Kiryu invests in real estate in Kamurochō, while Majima runs a cabaret club in Sotenbori. Completing side-quests will often result in characters they meet offering to help with side businesses, allowing players to more easily and quickly progress. Progressing in side business sequences or training with specific masters will unlock additional abilities for purchase on the characters' skill trees.
A major innovation of Yakuza 0 is the addition of multiple fighting styles for both Kiryu and Majima that can be switched in the middle of battle. Kiryu utilizes the balanced Brawler style, similar to that of previous entries; the powerful but slow Beast style, which allows him to use heavy weapons; and the fast boxing-based Rush style, which emphasizes mobility. Conversely, Majima uses the balanced Thug style; the weapons-oriented Slugger style, primarily focused around a baseball bat; and the capoeira and breakdancing-based Breaker style. Completing Kiryu and Majima's side businesses will unlock an additional "Legend" fighting style for the characters, the "Dragon of Dojima" and "Mad Dog of Shimano" styles, respectively.
Plot
Characters and settings Yakuza 0 takes place from December 1988 to January 1989, during the bubble era of Japan, in which real estate and stock market prices were greatly inflated. The two central protagonists of the game are Kazuma Kiryu (Takaya Kuroda/Yong Yea), a junior Tojo Clan yakuza in Kamurochō who is forced out of the clan due to a murder accusation, and Goro Majima (Hidenari Ugaki/Matthew Mercer), a disgraced former Tojo Clan yakuza who works as a cabaret manager in Sotenbori to earn his way back into the clan. Both protagonists are drawn into a conflict surrounding the "Empty Lot", a small piece of land in Kamurochō that the Tojo Clan wishes to acquire for redevelopment of the area. At the center of the controversy is Makoto Makimura (Miyuki Sawashiro/Risa Mei), a psychogenically induced blind woman who inherited ownership of the Lot.
Throughout the story, Kiryu and Majima are supported by several allies, including: Akira Nishikiyama (Kazuhiro Nakaya/Kaiji Tang), Kiryu's oath brother; Osamu Kashiwagi (Shunsuke Sakuya/David Hayter), captain of the Kazama Family; Shintaro Kazama (Tetsuya Watari/Paul Nakauchi), patriarch of the Kazama Family and a father figure to Kiryu and Nishikiyama; Tetsu Tachibana (Arata Iura/Howard Wang), president of a real estate company who offers to shelter Kiryu from the wrath of the Tojo Clan; Jun Oda (Katsuyuki Konishi/Alejandro Saab), Tachibana's right-hand man; Reina (Hiromi Tsuru/Michelle Wong), proprietor of the bar Serena and a friend of Nishikiyama; Wen Hai Lee (Kazunari Tanaka/Bill Millsap), a former assassin who owns a massage parlor in Sotenbori; Billiken (Ryohei Nakao/Adam Gold), an Osakan detective associated with Nishitani; Takashi Nihara (Hidekatsu Shibata/Frank Todaro), acting second chairman of the Tojo Clan; and Masaru Sera (Tōru Ōkawa/Nobi Nakanishi), a senior Tojo Clan officer who runs a secret black ops organization within the clan.
The primary antagonist of Yakuza 0 is the Dojima Family, a yakuza family within the Tojo Clan, whose patriarch, Sohei Dojima (Hisao Egawa/Imari Williams), seeks to become the next clan chairman and seize power. Under Dojima's command are his three lieutenants: Daisaku Kuze (Hitoshi Ozawa/Keston John), Hiroki Awano (Riki Takeuchi/Eliah Mountjoy), and Keiji Shibusawa (Hideo Nakano/Jon Ohye), who assist in Dojima's plan by tracking down the Empty Lot's owner and taking out Kiryu and Majima, who oppose them. Other antagonists include: Tsukasa Sagawa (Shingo Tsurumi/Andrew Kishino), a high-ranking Omi Alliance officer who supervises Majima in Sotenbori; Homare Nishitani (Keiji Fujiwara/Vic Chao), a sadomasochistic Omi Alliance officer who is attracted to Majima and often taunts him; Futoshi Shimano (Naomi Kusumi/Fred Tatasciore), Majima's former superior in the Tojo Clan and Sagawa's oath brother; and also Lao Gui (Koji Suzuki), a Chinese assassin hired by Dojima to frame Kiryu in the Empty Lot murder.
Synopsis In December 1988, yakuza Kazuma Kiryu is framed for murder in an empty lot in Kamurochō, Tokyo. As the Empty Lot is the last piece of land needing to be purchased for the Tojo Clan's redevelopment plan, it becomes the target of Dojima Family patriarch Sohei Dojima, believing obtaining it will grant him enough power and influence to become Tojo Clan chairman. In order to protect his adoptive father, Shintaro Kazama, from punishment for the death, Kiryu leaves the Dojima Family after a fight with Daisaku Kuze, a lieutenant of the Dojima family.
Kiryu meets real estate agent Tetsu Tachibana, who promises to clear his name in exchange for helping him acquire the Empty Lot before Dojima. After Kiryu and Jun Oda, Tachibana's right-hand man, interfere with squatters related to the Dojima family, Kuze and other Dojima lieutenants Hiroki Awano and Keiji Shibusawa demand Kiryu turn over Tachibana. Kiryu refuses, prompting the Dojima family to hunt him down. His oath brother Akira Nishikiyama cuts ties with Kiryu to keep each other safe. Tachibana tells Kiryu that the Empty Lot's owner is his estranged sister, Makoto Makimura, who inherited it from their grandfather and lives in Sotenbori, Osaka.
In Sotenbori, ex-yakuza Goro Majima is forced to run a cabaret club, as punishment for his involvement in the Ueno-Seiwa assassination in 1985. Per the orders of his former patriarch Futoshi Shimano, Majima is under constant surveillance by Shimano's oath brother, Tsukasa Sagawa, a member of the Omi Alliance, the Tojo Clan's rivals. Following a new order from Shimano, Sagawa offers Majima a chance to rejoin the Shimano Family by assassinating Makoto, who suffers from psychogenic blindness.
Majima finds Makoto under the protection of Wen Hai Lee, a former assassin. After Majima decides to protect Makoto, Lee suggests murdering a look-alike of Makoto to fool Sagawa. Though Majima rejects the idea, Shibusawa's assistant Homare Nishitani commits the deed in his place, hoping to attract Majima's attention. Suspecting the fraud, Sagawa sends his men to kill Majima and Makoto. Sagawa sets up a trap to kill Lee, then attempts to kill Majima and Makoto, but is stopped by Masaru Sera, an ally of Kazama, who takes Makoto away. Following a lengthy investigation, Majima and Sagawa confront Sera at his headquarters and find that he turned Makoto over to Kiryu.
Kiryu and Oda escort Makoto to Kamurochō but are chased by Shibusawa's men. Oda, revealed to be a mole for Shibusawa, attempts to kill Kiryu and Makoto. After being subdued by Kiryu, Oda explains that he and Tachibana were former Chinese gangsters in Japan. At that time, Makoto migrated to Japan to find her brother, but ran afoul of Oda, who sold her to a Korean gang, where she was sexually abused, causing her to suffer from psychogenically-induced blindness. Oda discovered Makoto's identity after Tachibana saw her on a documentary, and feared his reprisal ever since. Regretting his crimes, he allows Kiryu and Makoto to flee, before being executed by Shibusawa.
Kiryu meets Tachibana, who reveals that he knew that Makoto was looking for him. He also reveals that upon learning her inheritance of the Empty Lot, he turned to Kazama, who helped him form his company to protect Makoto from Dojima, who also planned to annihilate the Kazama Family. With their interests coinciding, Kiryu and Tachibana flee but Tachibana is captured by Dojima's assassin, Lao Gui, the true perpetrator of the Empty Lot murder. Tachibana is then tortured to death by Dojima Family member Yoneda, acting on behalf of Kuze with orders, and his men, whom Kiryu and Nishikiyama defeat. Makoto discovers her brother's body and regains partial sight.