Stranger Than Heaven’s brawler combat is harder than Like a Dragon, and RGG nailed why

RGG Studio’s upcoming series prequel Stranger Than Heaven made one thing painfully clear in a 30-minute demo at a BiliBili Game First Look event in Shanghai: the combat is harder than hell, and that is a good sign.

IGN editor Tristan Ogilvie describes getting his arse kicked immediately after first trying the game’s all-new street fighting system. But as he slowly got to grips with it over the course of the demo, the frustration turned into confidence, because the shift is not “more of the same” for fans of Like a Dragon brawling. This is a direct response to a real player expectation that has been building for years: RGG Studio’s modern mainline entries popularized a JRPG-style approach, but the series’ more traditional beat-em-up mechanics have increasingly lived on in spin-offs, where the underlying combo-based feel often stayed largely unchanged.

That context matters, because Stranger Than Heaven is trying to move the emotional needle of the entire franchise, not just add another system on top. Ogilvie is explicit about what he is not saying. He is not arguing that RGG Studio should scrap the turn-based combat introduced in Yakuza: Like a Dragon and later evolved in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. He is also clear that he still enjoys the newer JRPG fights, especially because they enable hilarious special moves and a strategic team-based dynamic.

So what is the real pivot? Ogilvie’s hands-on frames Stranger Than Heaven’s combat as a “kick in the pants,” a violent uppercut to an aging fisticuffs formula. In previous Kazama Kiryu-led adventures, that formula often centered on pumping up heat gauge and then button-mashing hordes of street thugs into oblivion. Stranger Than Heaven goes the other way. The gangs, in Ogilvie’s demo experience, are “liable to quickly kick you to the curb” if you do not have your wits about you. The system demands lock-in for every exchange, making wins feel earned rather than automatic.

Mechanically, the game uses the controller’s four shoulder buttons to puppeteer Makoto Daito’s left and right fists, and that forces a more intentional rhythm. Ogilvie says it takes time to get used to smoothly alternating punches, anticipating incoming attacks, and parrying them effectively. The payoff is satisfaction: after failing a few tries, he found a rhythm that made the combat feel “incredibly satisfying” to execute. In one moment, he wielded a large crowbar in his right hand while tackling a gang of roughly six assailants. When a goon grabbed the end of his weapon and tried to wrench it out, Ogilvie expected to lose control, but he still had full control of Makoto’s left hand. That allowed him to jab a second attacker attempting a blindside, then grab him by the scruff of the neck and knock both attackers together with the first thug. The point is not just damage. It is controllability during chaos, which is what veteran brawler players chase.

The “grounded realism” is also part of why Ogilvie keeps comparing it to other systems. He says it reminded him of the melee system in 007 First Light, but with “far more direct control” because of the dedicated right and left attack setup. That is a second-order signal for RGG Studio. If your hands-on demo feels more physical, more direct, and more decision-heavy, you tend to pull players away from mindless output and toward skill expression. That can matter commercially because it usually changes how players talk about a game. Not “it looks cool,” but “it feels fair when you learn it,” which is a stronger hook for retention.

Of course, the demo is not perfect, and Ogilvie lists the issues he noticed in its current state. A soft lock-on that aligns Makoto with each opponent would occasionally slip, sending him swinging wildly in the wrong direction and leaving him vulnerable to rear attacks. He also says some charged attacks with heavier weapons felt a touch sluggish for his tastes. In other words: the foundation is there, but the tuning is still in progress. With Stranger Than Heaven not due for release until early next year, RGG has time to tighten things up, especially around lock-on reliability and the feel of heavy-weapon charge attacks.

And this is where the strategic implications widen beyond combat. Ogilvie ends the preview arguing that the shakeup leaves him optimistic the studio is taking big swings in other areas too, including mission design and the interactive nature of its world. He points to an audio-recording feature where Makoto can record sound samples from the world and convert them into musical compositions. On paper, that sounds like it could be more involved than the simple rhythm-based button-tapping of karaoke mini-games that have been recycled in every Yakuza and Like a Dragon release since Yakuza 3. He also wonders what side activities will exist given Stranger Than Heaven’s 1915 to 1965 setting, which presumably restricts typical modern side content like Club Sega and Master System cartridges. He notes that arm wrestling mini-games are confirmed, then asks whether older pachinko parlors could appear, potentially evolving across five decades and across five city settings. Even the mention of Shinjuku in 1965 hints at a design question: will Sega-era electromechanical amusements show up in virtual form by the time the story reaches that decade.

Finally, there is a cultural speed bump that Ogilvie calls out, and it is not about gameplay mechanics. He questions why Tupac is in Stranger Than Heaven, calling the inclusion “baffling” and saying it feels off to him, even while he still plans to lunge fists-first into the game when it arrives in January 2027. Why include this? Because it shows the game is already drawing attention for reasons beyond combat feel, which can amplify every other part of the product narrative, good or bad. For executives and investors watching franchise moves, the lesson is straightforward: Stranger Than Heaven is betting that tightening core moment-to-moment combat can reset perceptions of the Like a Dragon template, and the early hands-on suggests the bet might land.