Sailing the Seas of Nostalgia: The Return of a Sega Arcade Classic in Treasure A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii

The Yakuza video game franchise has a talent for reviving often-overlooked classics from Sega‘s arcade era, and the forthcoming, charmingly-titled Treasure A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is continuing this delightful tradition.

Developer RGG Studios recently published a blog post exploring the quirky side activities featured in the latest Yakuza installment. A standout among these is an arcade game titled The Ocean Hunter, which has yet to be re-released from its arcade beginnings since its debut in 1998. It presents an ideal match for Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii since, as you might guess from its name, the game centers on hunting aquatic predators such as sharks and other sea monsters.

“The arcade games available in the Like A Dragon series necessitate the ‘recreation of the cabinet,'” wrote technical lead Yutaka Ito in a recent tweet. “This is also a rather challenging task, but with the assistance of many individuals, we were able to meticulously recreate the Ocean Hunter cabinet.” You may want to check out the cabinet, painstakingly crafted, in the tweet mentioned above.

The Yakuza series and Treasure A Dragon have a rich history of unearthing classic Sega arcade games, re-creating the cabinets, and making them playable within the Yakuza universe – everything from Daytona USA 2 to Virtua Fighter 2 has been adapted within Yakuza titles. And, perhaps this effort is what prompted RGG to revisit Virtua Fighter with the recently-launched reboot.

Treasure A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is also resurrecting several other classic mini-games, including the burger-eating contest from Infinite Wealth, a dating mini-game, and, of course, karaoke, as no Yakuza game would be complete without karaoke.

For now, stay updated on every thrilling release with our upcoming game release calendar for 2025 and beyond.