Yakuza 3 Remastered Is Getting Thrown Into A $130 Jail Cell Next Month
If you have been procrastinating on buying Yakuza 3 Remastered to complete your digital collection, Sega is about to make that mistake very expensive for you.
We are less than a month away from Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties hitting the shelves. The hype is real because Yakuza 3 has always been the black sheep of the family. It has clunky combat. The orphanage pacing is glacial. It desperately needed the "Kiwami" treatment. But in a move that feels distinctly like the old, greedy Sega we all know and tolerate, the publisher has decided to make the original version significantly harder to access.
The Bundle Trap
The news comes straight from the horse's mouth. Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio released a statement confirming that once Kiwami 3 launches on February 12, 2026, the standalone version of Yakuza 3 Remastered is vanishing from digital storefronts.
If you already own it, you are safe. You can download and play it whenever you want. But if you are a new player who wants to see how the game looked before it got a shiny Unreal Engine 5 makeover, you are screwed. Your only option will be to purchase the "Yakuza Complete Series" bundle.
According to eager fans doing the math in the comments, that bundle runs about $130. That is a hell of a price of entry just to play a PS3-era upscale.
"Creative Direction" or Just Greed?
The studio's statement was wrapped in the usual PR fluff. They mentioned placing "great importance on staying faithful to our creative direction" and hoping fans enjoy the "completely new experiences" in Kiwami 3.
Let me translate that for you. They probably changed a lot in the remake. Yakuza 3 is famous for its weird, slow start and dated mechanics. RGG Studio likely overhauled the narrative flow so heavily that the original game now feels like a completely different product. They don't want new fans accidentally buying the "old" one for $20 and bouncing off the series because the combat feels like you are punching underwater.
But locking it behind a massive bundle is a brute-force solution. It preserves the game in a literal sense, sure. It isn't being erased from existence like Spec Ops: The Line. But it effectively kills the game for anyone who isn't a whale or a hardcore collector.
Grab It While It Is Cheap
This is my warning to you. If you care about game preservation or just want to own the original timeline without taking out a loan, go buy Yakuza 3 Remastered right now.
It is currently sitting around £16/$20 on Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox. That is a steal compared to the bundle price you will be forced to pay in a few weeks. The physical Remastered Collection (which includes 3, 4, and 5) is also a solid option if you can find a disc copy in the wild.
Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties lands on February 12 for basically everything, including the Switch 2. It will probably be great. But it shouldn't have to come at the cost of burying the original.
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