It may not feel like it, but it has been a full decade sinceYakuza 0was first released, serving as a full-sized prequel to the legendary Like A Dragon franchise. Commemorating not only the tenth anniversary of the game’s release, but also the launch of Nintendo Switch 2,Yakuza 0 Director’s Cutpromises to be the best way to experience the game, with new content, improved gameplay elements and a brand-new game mode.
Welcome to the Red Light Raid
The biggest new addition toYakuza 0in the Director’s Cut is found outside the main game, in a new combat-focused mode called Red Light Raid. Players select one of dozens of characters from theYakuzafranchise to play as and are sent through stages of increasingly difficult enemy gangs to survive in an all-out brawl. The biggest catch of all? This mode is fully playable in online multiplayer, allowing squads of up to four players to fight alongside each other in classicYakuzacombat.
Like most other multiplayer modes accompanying single-player campaigns, Red Light Raid is accessed in the main menu, having no effect on your playthrough of the classic open-world campaign (as far as we could tell). Players can opt to play solo or in online multiplayer (finding teammates via matchmaking or inviting friends), with the additional option to add up to three random bots to join you.
The biggest new addition toYakuza 0in the Director’s Cut is found outside the main game, in a new combat-focused mode called Red Light Raid.
There are a whopping sixty total characters to choose from when playing Red Light Raid, some of which are unlocked by completing various challenges in the game mode. Plenty of main characters in the franchise, such as Majima, are playable with diverse movesets and combo types (note that you can only settle on one single fighting style for characters that have multiple). Inversely, there’s a wide selection of obscure and gag characters to play as, including escaped prison convicts and killer clowns. The obscure characters usually come with a limited move set, with the more complex characters usually appearing as bosses throughout the series.
Fighting in raids awards you with new characters, as well as cash that can be spent to upgrade the stats for each individual playable character, making the more difficult levels easier to overcome. There are also a total of six levels (each with an escalating level of difficulty and length):
It’s a simple, yet addictive way to play with friends or strangers alike, and fans of the franchise’s combat will be excited to find a non-stop way to brawl and battle.
A New Way to Play
We had the chance to play the game on Nintendo Switch 2, and both the campaign and the Red Light Raid mode looked fantastic. Gameplay hit a crisp 4K resolution throughout the entire demo, without any blurring due to upscaling or major drops in frame rate.
The frame rate itself stayed above 60 FPS for the entirety of our playing experience, maintaining performance and fidelity while in docked mode (we did not get a chance to try out the game in handheld mode).
There are tons of other changes coming toYakuza 0 Director’s Cut, including additional cinematic cutscenes and improvements in gameplay. For anyone who hasn’t gotten a chance to explore the world of 1980s Tokyo in the original release ofYakuza 0(or for those that want to do it again),Yakuza 0 Director’s Cutis sure to be a safe choice when it releases alongside the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 on June 28, 2025.
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Yakuza 0 Director’s Cut
