The world of video game development, despite how terribly predictable it can be in terms of AAA releases, can be utterly chaotic behind the scenes. New games get announced all the time, but it’s only a relative few that make it all the way through to release day. Customer demand and developer passion isn’t always enough to hold up a big project either, unfortunately. No, oftentimes it comes down to having sufficient dollars and cents to get it done, and, as with this story, that cash can oftentimes just disappear right out from under you.

First found in a Bloomberg report and then picked upt by the likes of GamesIndustry and PC Gamer, it seems that NetEase has already decided to pull funding from Nagoshi Studio’s Gang of Dragon only three months after its initial reveal at The Game Awards 2025. The apparent reason is that NetEase learned that it’ll likely take around another $44.4 million to complete the game’s development.

It’s not a small number by any stretch, but then the Yakuza games (and games that copy it like Sleeping Dogs) traditionally do pretty well, with two of the more recent Like a Dragon games hitting more than 2 million copies sold. The main man behind Gang of Dragon is Toshihiro Nagoshi, the guy who created the Yakuza series in the first place, so one would think that his studio would be able to make a successful game using what is essentially his original formula.

Development costs might not be the whole story, though. PC Gamer pointed out that NetEase has been on something of a studio shutdown spree lately, which leads one to think that it’s overextended itself and is now in a panic trying to reduce its operating costs. Thankfully, the publisher has left the door open for Nagoshi Studio and Gang of Dragon.

It’s allowing development to continue, but only on the condition that Nagoshi Studio buys out the IP and other assets first. The studio is reportedly looking for new funding at the moment, but they haven’t announced whether they’ve found any interested parties yet. Here’s hoping that they can get everything back on track quickly. I don’t know if you know any Yakuza fans, but I do, and they are absolutely frothing at the mouth in anticipation for this one.

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What do you think of this? Do you think they’ll have trouble finding someone else to bankroll this one?

Image from the Steam page.