Sega and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio revealed the brand new Trooper Card system that will be featured in the upcoming Like a Dragon: Ishin! remake.
Players will be able to collect and upgrade Trooper Cards that can give them additional attacks or buffs in a fight. Some of these cards feature characters from the series, while others feature cameos from real-world fans of the franchise. The first cameos to be revealed are AEW’s Kenny Omega, as well as Rahul Kohli, an actor who has appeared in shows like iZombie and The Haunting of Bly Manor.
Kohli has been a fan of the Yakuza series ever since he started playing the games during a hotel quarantine ahead of filming his cameo for The Midnight Club, and his fandom will now permanently be represented in Like a Dragon: Ishin! through a Trooper Card called Essence of Firestorm. The card’s description reads, “A chivalrous man who’s traveled through space, time, and reality to serve the Shinsengumi. Draws upon his experience in law enforcement to keep the peace” and causes waves of explosive fire to damage enemies around the player.
Ahead of this announcement, Digital Trends spoke to Kohli, who’s previously appeared in games like Fortnite, Gears 5, and Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed. He discussed a bit of the process of working with Ryu Ga Gotoku studio on the Essence of Firestorm card and how he found the Japanese game developer to be a lot more friendly and collaborative than some Western studios.
“I definitely saw a difference between working with Western and Eastern studios,” Kohli told Digital Trends. “Our correspondence with Sega and RGG was so involved and sweet. They really cared, and it felt so much more collaborative. Nothing specific, but when I’ve been involved in other things, it’s like, ‘Just do the voice, mate,” and then you never hear about it again. I never expected to have the back and forth of RGG constantly checking in to ask, “Is Rahul happy with this? Does he like the artwork?” I never said no to any of it, but I’m sure if I had any type of gripe, they would have obliged, so I felt very welcome and involved.”
While Kohli doesn’t have a speaking role in Like a Dragon: Ishin!, they believe the Essence of Firestorm is “how I feel a lot of the time,” and that being a recurring gameplay cameo is just as cool as potentially voicing a character in a Like a Dragon game, which Kohli is open to doing in the future.
“I’m happy with this involvement,” Kohli says. “I would love to voice, but I’m a Trooper Card, man. I can voice an NPC and be a part of the storyline, or I can be on the screen’s bottom corner throughout the whole of someone’s gameplay. I think I got it good as it is.”
Overall, there will be six cameo-based Trooper Cards in the game, and all of them will be available to download for free at launch. Like a Dragon: Ishin! will be released for PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on February 21.
