Highlights

  • Fans of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth discovered a reference to Shenmue, with characters on a podcast discussing an incident involving its protagonist, Ryo Hazuki.
  • The podcast Easter Egg found in Infinite Wealth references Shenmue's lack of direction and is seen as a respectful nod to the franchise.

Fans of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth recently discovered a reference to Shenmue, with characters discussing an incident revolving around its protagonist, Ryo Hazuki. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth launched earlier this week, featuring the same open-world exploration and turn-based RPG battle mechanics as its predecessor, Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Prior to Yakuza: Like a Dragon, the franchise was a beat-em-up action brawler that saw players exploring open-world cities. Many fans believe that a lot of Like a Dragon's mechanics can be traced back to fellow Sega IP, Shenmue.

Shenmue was an action-adventure game series that was originally released for the Sega Dreamcast, consisting of exploring open-world 3D environments mixed with combat. The first two games were lauded for their ambitious design, with Shenmue being the first pioneers of an open-world setting. When the first Like a Dragon game (originally titled Yakuza in the West) was released in 2006, many gamers christened it as Shenmue's spiritual successor due to how similar both games were. Infinite Wealth appears to be paying its respects to Shenmue based on an Easter Egg found in the game.

Ichiban Kiryu Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth
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What Is The Shenmue Reference in Infinite Wealth?

On the r/Shenmue subreddit, user RelaxAlixx posted a video of Infinite Wealth's gameplay, showing Ichiban and his party wandering the city while listening to a podcast. In this episode of the podcast, one of the hosts, Mike, tells the story of a "strange kid" he met at the harbor. He explicitly remembers being asked, unprompted, "excuse me, do you know a place where sailors hang out," much to his confusion. He then recalls how the kid would go around and ask every other person in the harbor the same question, with Mike being exasperated at him asking if there were sailors nearby when harbors are a pretty logical location where they would be.

The host then notes he had this striking leather jacket that was adorned with a tiger on the back, which matches the description of Shenmue's protagonist, Ryo Hazuki. Mike then recalls how he was later asked about a warehouse, with Ryo apparently approaching him and several other people on the street about the same question. The third time he saw Ryo Hazuki was when he was asking about who could give him a boat ride, witnessing this from his porch as Ryo ran door-to-door to ask each of his neighbors.

shenmue sailors-1

This incident was likely inspired by Shenmue's lack of direction in its open-world, which saw players getting lost in Shenmue and having Ryo ask about sailors in the early game. Many fans loved this reference, seeing it as a respectful way for the Like a Dragon series to honor one of its predecessors. The podcast can be found by going through the mp3 player item in the player's inventory. According to RelaxAlixx, these podcasts contain other references, which could lead to some more fun discussions in the near future.