Judgment series possibly ending after second game due to talent agency shenanigans

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Isaac Todd
July 12, 2021
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Despite Judgment‘s success, and an upcoming sequel on consoles, the game has never made its way to PC — and now we might know why. According to Nikkan Taishu, the lack of a PC release is due to Takuya Kimura’s (the actor for protagonist Yagami) talent agency Johnny’s.

Johnny’s seemingly uses draconian likeness use policies, and will not allow their talents to appear on “a PC platform that is not a game console platform and connects directly to Internet” (thanks to hzy980512 on Reddit for the English translation).

Considering that Judgment is already available on Stadia, a platform that’s only available via an internet connection, it’s possibly an attempt at stopping mods using Kimura’s 3D model — though models from the game have already been ripped from the consoles versions.

This isn’t the first time the talent agency has been overly protective of Kimura’s image either — Sega had to edit out all appearances of the actor taken during a launch event.

So what does this mean for the series as a whole? Well, it seems like Sega might be calling it quits after Lost Judmgent. Being unable to bring the series to PC is a huge blow for the company, especially after managing to port every mainline Yakuza game. Future Yakuza spin-off titles will probably still happen, but this is most likely the end for Judgment.

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