Latest news with #LikeADragon:PirateYakuzaInHawaii
Metro
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
GTA 6 cast: who are the main characters and who do you play as?
The newest GTA 6 trailer not only gives some backstory on its two leads but also introduces other key members of the main cast. Rockstar Games has eased the sting of GTA 6's delay into 2026 with a surprise second trailer, which was long overdue considering the first trailer was in 2023. The new trailer didn't reveal as much new information as we would've liked (with no clear indication if any of it was actual gameplay) and mostly reiterated what the first trailer already made clear. However, it did provide a first look at the extended cast outside of protagonists Jason and Lucia, and an update to Rockstar's website has provided some detailed background on the cast as a whole. One half of GTA 6's Bonnie and Clyde inspired protagonists, Jason gets a lot more screen time in the second trailer compared to the first, where Lucia took most of the focus. As such, we finally know a bit more about who Jason is. For starters, he was embroiled in crime from an early age, having grown up 'around grifters and crooks.' After a stint in the army, he begins the game working for local drug runners, but it seems he wants something more out of life. The trailer also indicates he and Lucia were already an item before she went to prison and that he's been waiting for her to get out ever since. The website adds: 'Meeting Lucia could be the best or worst thing to ever happen to him,' which could hint at their relationship becoming uneven throughout the game and leading to disaster. While his voice actor has yet to be confirmed, it does sound like it could be Matthew Mercer, based on the dialogue in the trailer. Aside from being the dungeon master on Dungeons & Dragons web series Critical Role, Mercer has a long history as a video game voice actor. Recent roles include Gora Majima in Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii and Ganondorf in The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom. The Bonnie to Jason's Clyde and the first proper female protagonist in the GTA series. There were options to play as a female character in the first couple of 2D games, but Lucia is the first with an actual personality. While it's still unclear what Lucia was in prison for at the start of GTA 6, it's said she was 'fighting for her family' and it was only through sheer luck she's been released. The website's description makes it clear she has big ambitions and is 'committed to her plan — no matter what it takes.' Her and Jason look to be in a happy relationship even while committing crimes, but perhaps her ambitions will gradually drive a wedge between the two. Although Rockstar hasn't confirmed anything, the clear implication is that both Lucia and Jason are playable characters, perhaps with the ability to switch between them at will, as seen in GTA 4. Leaks from the Rockstar hack also suggest they are both playable. A friend of Jason, Cal Hampton is a conspiracy theorist who otherwise sounds satisfied with his lot in life. No doubt he'll be a recurring ally to Jason and Lucia, though whether he'll be their man in the chair supplying info or get involved with the more violent robberies remains to be seen. It's not confirmed, but some suspect he's being played by The Bear actor Matty Matheson. He and Cal do share a resemblance, which could mean he's lent not only his voice but his likeness as well. A 'local Vice City legend,' Boobie Ike's 'time in the street' has resulted in legitimate enterprises consisting of a real estate business, a strip club, and a recording studio. Rockstar is already implying that he's still a drug dealer though, at least as a side concern. By the time of GTA 6, he's invested in supporting an upcoming musician and is in need of a new hit. Exactly how he'll become intertwined with Jason and Lucia is unknown, so he's either a much-needed ally in their own criminal dealings or a potentially powerful enemy should they target him. You'll likely need to pay each of his different businesses a visit throughout the course of the game and each one could have related jobs to take on to make some cash. The musician partnered with Boobie Ike is Dre'Quan Priest, who also has a criminal past – which he's apparently used as a means to break into the music business. The website says he's booking acts at Ike's strip club, but he's also landed a deal with fellow music act Real Dimez, in his latest push to become a legitimate star. He'll likely be a recurring side character who Jason and Lucia can assist in his music career, although it remains to be seen how willing he is to partake in illegal acts. Although considering this is GTA, probably quite willing. Two women who've been friends since high school, Real Dimez have made a name for themselves through their spicy rap music and social media presence. Based on the website description, their career may have peaked and 'after five years and a whole lot of trouble,' they're hoping to capture lightning in a bottle twice by signing on with Only Raw Records. Between them and Dre'Quan Priest, the music industry looks to be a big part of GTA 6 and one ripe for the series' brand of satire. Given how much presence Real Dimez and Dre'Quan Priest appear to have in the game, their songs could also be part of the official soundtrack, alongside real world musicians. An experienced bank robber on the hunt for new talent, Raul Bautista sounds as ambitious as Lucia, with the website saying his recklessness means the stakes keep going up with every successful heist. Combined with the trailer, his presence strongly suggests GTA 5 style heists will be a thing once more and that Jason and Lucia will likely work under him throughout the game. While Bautista has the capacity to be a criminal mentor for Jason and Lucia, we could see him doubling as a villain should the pair strike out on their own and/or cost him one of his big heists. An elderly drug runner who's on his third wife, but is still involved with the criminal lifestyle, having gained enough experience to know how to let others do the dirty work for him. More Trending Brian is set to be another ally for Jason and Lucia since he's letting the former live rent free at one of his properties, but only as long as Jason agrees to the occasional local shakedown. The two's relationship otherwise seems friendly in the trailer, with Brian being the one to warn Jason that the cops have his name and address. As such, you can expect Brian to be an ally, at least in the early hours of the game when operating as a small time crook. Brian seems to be played by actor Stephen Root, who is perhaps best known as Milton from Office Space. Grand Theft Auto 6 will be released on May 26, 2006 for Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5. No PC version has been announced so far. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: GTA 6 fans despair as they fear second delay and long wait for the PC version MORE: GTA 6 delay sees rival publisher pick the exact same release date for its game MORE: GTA 6 Trailer 2 is purposefully being left as late as possible admits Take-Two
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii Review: A Yo Ho Home Run for Swarthy Adventurers
Games with uniquely bombastic titles don't often live up to their names. Thankfully, Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii delivers on the promise of its wild title, merging stylish action with an outlandish story and a hefty slew of mini-games, side stories and activities. While I've only played around 20 hours of the game, due to a busy February, the (skull and) bones of the adventure are laid out in that span. Sega's Ryu Ga Gotoku studio has built an operatic saga in its eight mainline Yakuza games and handful of spinoffs, telling stories of crime and found family, betrayal and brotherhood. From my two previews with the game ahead of its release on Feb. 21, I knew it was going to be different. Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii might be the most radical departure from the main plot of prior games, which makes it a perfect starting point for new players while rewarding series veterans with cameos -- and, of course, the pleasure of playing fan-favorite Goro Majima in his swashbuckling era. The Mad Dog of Shimano is the most fitting of the series' cast to take a turn flying the Jolly Roger. The eyepatch-wearing goateed yakuza starts the game waking up on a beach with no memory. He's quickly brought up to speed about the small island he's on and the pirates who sail the waters on wooden warships between it and nearby Honolulu, Hawaii. And he decides, correctly, that he must have a ship and crew of his own to hunt down legendary treasure. A perfect premise. Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii is a fun, light jaunt that benefits from the idiosyncrasies of its specific setup. Rather than telling a story about modern piracy, the game brings cannon-firing pirate ships, crew-on-crew deck melees and buried treasure hunts into modernity without any pesky logical explanation. The game's bizarre mashup energy is its strength, amplified by RGG's signature blend of sincere character moments and wacky hijinks. Majima himself is the core of much of this energy. Though he's co-headlined several Yakuza games, he comes into his own in Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. Metaphorically and literally unshackled from the game series' weighty past, the amnesiac Captain Majima sails the seas with a gleeful thirst for treasure, which proves infectious to everyone he meets -- and to the player. This makes the game ideally suited for newcomers to the Yakuza series: even if they'll miss a few of the deeper references and cameos later in the game, the plot is essentially a standalone adventure. New story aside, in typical fashion for the Yakuza games, RGG has carried over a lot of the gameplay from the main series: Running around fighting street goons in real-time combat, shopping at stores and helping locals in amusing side quests. While the new game abandons the turn-based combat of its immediate predecessor, Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, it inherits the city of Honolulu -- the biggest area in Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii -- and most of its colorful denizens. It also retains Yakuza's signature range of minigames, both new and returning. Yes, that includes karaoke. Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii layers over that familiarity with everything needed for a pirate adventure: a new dual-cutlass fighting style for Majima, a ragtag pirate crew to gather, ships to fight in naval combat, several island archipelagos to explore and the bombastic Madlantis area to walk around. The game effectively bounces between these two worlds of thrilling pirate adventure and zany city life; often just as I was wearying from playing too long in one half of the game's setting, its story shrewdly flung me back into the other. How long that sustains you depends largely on your appetite for side adventures. While the main story is fun enough -- a sprawling yarn filled with conspiracies, religious zealots, pirate kings and queens and yakuza sniffing a big score -- the game's soul is in all its side content. You've gotta want to be a citizen of Honolulu nosing into everyone's business to love this game, but RGG's tried-and-true formula of slice-of-life stories makes it easy. The side stories are where the Yakuza universe shines, and Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii proudly upholds the tradition. In a few hours' time, the memory-less madman Goro Majima went on a pop idol bus tour, attended corporate compliance for pirates, went to a beach zoo, nearly fell for a pet mind reading scam and helped a foul-mouthed American lady pirate dress in a kimono to woo a weeb. I won't spoil what seems to be the game's most involved side story where Majima tries to do his first mate a favor, and it breaks into extended live-action footage like a mock reality TV show. In sticking to its strengths of bite-sized storytelling, RGG shows off how unique its games are, with novel narratives toeing the line between absurdity and ridiculousness. The more you play, however, the clearer it is that the story elements are stronger than the pirate ones. Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii gleefully indulges in plenty of pirate imagery and action, with a charm that extends for most of the game. While it never overstays its welcome, it doesn't feel particularly deep, either. Consider Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii as more of the arcade experience for piracy and all it entails. There's none of the sailing and navigating complexity of Sea of Thieves, nor the precise aiming of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag nor the intense resource and exploration of Skull and Bones. There are half a dozen areas to sail, each with a handful of beaches you can land on to dig up treasure, and you get around the seas by moving through boost rings (perhaps simulating water currents, if I'm being generous). You can also speed up with the jet engines at the bottom of your ship, because why not. Nautical combat is similarly fun but uncomplicated, with just enough variety in cannons to keep fights interesting, especially as enemy ships get beefier as the game goes on. When taking on notable flagships, defeating them at sea leads to boarding them with your crew of ruffians -- it's always a hoot to be in the middle of a fight Even without grinding for resources, I still only had trouble with a couple fights, and I ran out of useful upgrades by 20 hours in. Customizing my handsome vessel with outlandish decorations (including adorning your ship's prow with many wooden figureheads like, uh, a Hitachi massage wand) was the only way I switched up my vessel later in the game. This cavalier approach runs through the melee combat, too: it's easy to wade into low-level enemies, cutting them down with your cutlasses like wheat in a gleeful Dynasty Warriors-esque power fantasy of a pirate captain among his prey. But hand-to-hand fighting can feel too loose, with the lack of lock-on leaving you swinging through an extensive sword combo in the wrong direction or shooting your pistol at nobody. You can get buried under masses of enemies and blinded by flashy effects. Your special moves, powered by a Heat Gauge that slowly fills below your health bar, have situational triggers that can be difficult to pull off as the prompt appears on the screen for a fraction of a second. The game's action favors novel experiences over difficulty -- I mean, the game made me swordfight bears and tigers on multiple occasions, which were enjoyably chaotic rather than technical challenges. Likewise with another of the game's hallmark experiences, the Pirates Coliseum. Nestled in the neon-splattered ship graveyard turned city of Madlantis, the Coliseum offers escalating combat scenarios of differing formats, from ship-to-ship combat to 100-enemy melees. It feels like if Walt Disney built a Las Vegas casino for one of the scarier Roman emperors. While the game may not have depth in many of its aspects and features, it dares you to be bored. From a minigame roster bigger than anything outside of last year's Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, activities like photo scavenger hunts and lawbreaker bounties to hunt and a substantial string of side stories to experience, Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii will keep you entertained -- and frequently surprised by the sincerity of its myriad vignettes. While the broader narrative covers the freedom of the high seas when your past isn't a problem, the game's side stories touch on many, many aspects of the human spectrum. Odds are you'll find some storyline or another that resonates with you, though Majima remains a manic clown who ends up in ridiculous situations as often as he's drawing emotional truths from strangers. So long as you're up for his adventure on the streets and the seas, Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii will keep surprising you -- and, unlike many games, living up to its bombastic title. Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii is coming out for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and PC on Feb. 21.
