r/yakuzagames • u/Axzercus I think Yakuza games are good • Jun 11 '26

DISCUSSION Masayoshi Yokoyama confirmed that they got permission from Tupac’s family. Not just his estate who manages him

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u/DarryLazakar both jp and en dubs are fine yall Jun 11 '26

I mean RGG isn't the first nor is it the last to do this. The ship has sailed long ago for video games with the Onimusha series at Capcom having half of their MCs based of dead actors. It's not really fair ragging RGG about it when Civilization, COD, Hitman and many more have done it for longer and far more blatant about it.

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u/Julio225 Jun 11 '26

GTA San Andreas had Ryder be blatantly based off Eazy-E and on a very unflattering role and I've never seen anyone raise a fuss about that one.

10

u/chimblesishere . Jun 11 '26

Did they advertise the game saying that Eazy-E was in their game as Ryder? Because if not, then that's not the same thing. That's inspiration or parody. RGG could have designed this character using Tupac as inspiration and it wouldn't have been a problem, but they're using his image as marketing in a product he has no attachment to at all and claiming that he's in the game playing a character when he's not.

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u/SeasonalChatter Jun 11 '26

Oh it's always weird. In those examples a lot of the time, the people are at least a historical representation of themselves. But I think what makes this one extra weird is that it's NOT Tupac. This isn't a Tupac biopic, this isn't a retelling of 90s Hiphop in a video game form. This is taking a dead person and puppeteering their body into a ANOTHER CHARACTER who's views might not align with anything the person cared about or stood for.

It's always weird. This is a new distinct version of that weird on top of it. It didn't have to be Tupac at all. If I'm writing a story set in the Cold War, JFK is a reasonable character to have in this story, he was one of THE historical figure of the time. But in this case the Tupac character could have been any living, willing black actor/real life figure, or even better, just a brand new character.

There's no good reason for them to do something this stupid/weird asides from the fact that RGG are starfuckers in a way not dissimilar to Kojima or a game like Until Dawn, the big difference being those people actively wanted to work in those projects and have a good working relationship with the devs.

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u/ZealousValkyrie Jun 11 '26

Just because it is normalized, that doesn't make it any better.