In a rather long livestream yesterday, Sega shared some brand-new footage of both Yakuza Kiwami 1 and 2 running on Nintendo Switch 2. Sega’s community manager, Carlos, and senior product manager, Brent, sat down to play the ports and discussed some of their favorite bits of information about the series, some of their favorite pieces of fan art, and even highlighted cosplay from fans across the world.
While Yakuza Kiwami was actually released on Switch 1 back in October 2024 to coincide with the premiere of Amazon Prime’s “Like a Dragon: Yakuza” show, the game is now getting a Switch 2 port that increases the resolution and ups the framerate to 60 fps. It will be similar to how Yakuza 0: Director’s Cut runs on the console, which is mostly smooth with very little performance dips.
Yakuza Kiwami 2, on the other hand, looks functionally identical to the PlayStation 4 version released in 2017 in Japan. That means we’re likely getting a 1080p presentation with a 30 fps frame rate cap. For a portable console, that’s actually really nice, but it does show the limitations of Nintendo’s platform when it comes to more modern games. It also means that any future ports from RGG Studios will probably fare the same, so don’t expect a belated version of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth to showcase massive improvements.
All in all, both versions look like solid additions to the franchise that should tide over Nintendo loyalists. The stream also has a sneak peak at the upcoming Stranger than Heaven, which so far has not been announced for Switch 2. Seeing as how Sega threw it in at the end here, I would anticipate that the game will launch day and day on Nintendo’s new console alongside other ports.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
