Did I Not Call It!? A Follow-Up to the Stranger Than Heaven Trailer

Did I not call it, ladies and gentlemen?

Did I not call it!?

If you are not sure what I’m talking about, I recommend you read my previous article, Stranger Than Heaven Looks Good… BUT…

Well, ladies and gentlemen, what I was afraid was going to happen, happened. It seems pretty clear what path RGG Studios is going to take with S.T.H., what with the latest trailer release of Tupac’s reveal.

I could not actually believe what I was seeing; I was shocked, confused, stunned, and thought this was all A.I. I seriously could not stop asking, “Why though?”

Why, indeed.

But I think we all know why at this point. It’s appearing like RGG Studios intends to focus less on their traditional Yakuza fanbase and more on a mainstream audience.

After Katsura Hashino, from ATLUS, made that perturbing comment about looking for a “wider audience,” and seeing what RGG Studios doing (both companies loosely connected under SEGA, might I remind you), I cannot help but think this is a confirmation of what RGG Studios is enacting.

And again, that appeal is apparent in the trailer. Sure, it starts off as something that you’d expect from a typical, shady yakuza underworld premise. The trailer has Japanese spoken rather than English like in the previous trailer, so props to them for that.

But that is immediately subverted when, nearly midway through the trailer, the mood changes. The music and titles suddenly appear as an iterative of the style of Black cinema.

The trumpet and percussion blare and beat with hints of funk, and the title fonts of the stars are big, bold, capitalized, dramatic, with that three-dimensional, shadowed lettering. It’s reminiscent of the blaxploitation genre, both old and new. Films like Shaft, Black Dynamite, or Dolemite is My Name.

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

Courtesy of IMDB

Courtesy of Movie Titles

There’s even a hint of that flamboyant style Tarantino has in his films, who was also a fan of the blaxploitation genre of the 70s.

Courtesy of Drama Association

Wasn’t expecting to see this in an article about S.T.H., were you?

But it’s exactly what RGG seems to demonstrate.

I suppose this really is stranger than Heaven.

Why bring this up? The artistic choices in the trailer — the sudden funk shift with trumpets and percussion, the bold shadowed title fonts echoing blaxploitation and Tarantino cinema, even ADO’s Jazz/soul/hip-hop theme (which I love, by the way) blended with Snoop, Broadus, and Tupac’s casting — it strongly implies RGG Studios is steering S.T.H. toward a wider, more mainstream Western Audience. Longtime Yakuza fans like me will find this shift jarring.

Look at it this way: if you were to take out the context and I.P. of Stranger Than Heaven and advertised this trailer as a blank slate, you could imagine this being appealing for Black American audiences familiar with hip-hop and blaxploitation cinema rather than core Yakuza fans.

Courtesy of PlayStation

Before, it felt like an odd choice having Snoop Dogg and Cordell Broadus as casting choices in the game. But once Tupac came out of f*cking nowhere in the latest trailer as a surprise cast choice for the game, I could make some interpretations to explain what may be going on.

It’s the reason why I was highly suspicious that RGG Studios is appealing to them as their audience.

It’s certainly a move, but one with caveats, such as the potential of losing fans, like me, who LOVE the Yakuza I.P.

But another curious detail arises:

Why Tupac?

Courtesy of Los Angeles Times

Even setting aside audience targeting, why him?

Simple: Snoop Dogg wanted it.

According to Kotaku and Billboard, Snoop used his networking and personal connection to Tupac and his family to strike a deal with SEGA.

The two rappers were good friends, by the way.

SEGA already has Bunta Sugawara (a deceased Japanese actor from past yakuza films) starring organically in S.T.H.

Courtesy of PlayStation

Courtesy of IKoKaI

I suppose the idea is, “If we can have the appearance of a deceased movie star from our culture, why not have one from the West?”

Unlike Sugawara, however, Tupac feels way off by comparison and was added because Snoop pushed for it.

This raises the question: how much influence do he and his son, Cordell Broadus, actually have?

Curiously, Snoop and Cordell are co-founders of Death Row Games, which released a cinematic demo starring Snoop and Tupac in Unreal Engine 5.

Courtesy of Ewald Vorster

They have a clear foot in the gaming industry and the connections that come with it. The strange thing, though, is that I still can’t find any evidence either has previously played Yakuza. Broadus talks mostly about playing Fortnite, Madden, and Fuzion Frenzy — which has just as much genre correlation with Yakuza as New York Steak compliments liquorice strands for dinner.

Snoop and Broadus apparently “[are] avid gamers [and they] witnessed the power of videogames and how impactful storytelling is…” But I would argue his brother and grandmother are more traditional nerd gamers, as they play World of Warcraft or The Legend of Zelda.

In any case, if we are to take that Broadus has his business in gaming while Snoop Dogg simply has influence in pop culture, and if they are avid gamers, I suppose they may be fans of Yakuza and have never disclaimed it or there just is no evidence to say that they are.

Courtesy of Wallpaper Cave

OR… SEGA just wanted to appeal to Black American audiences (the wider audience, if you like) and just wanted to get Snoop Dogg on board, and he just told them he wanted Tupac in it.

But I still have to wonder: how much influence does Snoop and his son have in S.T.H. to make it a certain way and appeal to a certain audience?

What do I think this means for S.T.H.?

I think S.T.H.… is going to be… just fine.

Like GTA VI, it’ll be just fine.

But I’m in no rush to pre-order and will most likely wait for a discount in the future.

If it’s a game where its spirit is not being faithful to its Yakuza roots, then it’s obviously not for me. And, to be honest, that would be disappointing.

There’s an interesting point made by Red Letter Media a long time ago when they were critiquing Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. When discussing Samuel L. Jackson’s casting as Mace Windu, they explain how Black folks were not into Star Wars (at the time). Lucas and others just wanted to have the diversity and the “urban market” for business.

Courtesy of Red Letter Media

“Jackson was cast,” Mr. Plinkett said, “not because he was good for the part… but because his name would bring in extra dollars and an audience that might not have come otherwise.”

I cannot help but see some similarity with S.T.H.

To drive the point further, As Mr. Plinkett would say in this context of S.T.H. and Yakuza:

“Black people don’t really like [Yakuza] all that much. Sure, some do, I guess, but it’s a really small number…You can make a [game] that appeals to all audiences, but you got to keep all the elements pretty subdued in order to make it work. When you include the extreme ends of the spectrum that [games] could go to in order to sell your [game] to everyone possible… it becomes a big f*cking disaster.”
– Red Letter Media’s Mr. Plinkett

Hence, why I am concerned about the “wider audience” demographic that Hashino-san of ATLUS mentioned and RGG Studios seems to be targetting.

I’m not a fan of Snoop Dogg or Tupac; I don’t hate them; I just don’t listen to their music. I’m not much of a hip-hop guy. But seeing them in this game with Broadus and all these other elements… it feels like that’s what RGG is going for.

But maybe I’m wrong!

Maybe they have played the Yakuza games in the past, and none of us are aware of it. Maybe Snoop Dogg loves Majima-chan and his wild antics, Broadus finds Kiryu-chan a compelling stoic figure, and both enjoy Ichiban as the most lovable protagonist.

And Tupac… well… depending on who you ask, perhaps he went the way of some certain characters in the retconned Yakuza narrative; lying low somewhere in a bar he quietly established and playing Yakuza on his off-hours.

And it’s not impossible for them to like the game (Tupac aside, of course).

There’s a certain demographic of Black anime fans who probably branch out and love the series more than I do!

The problem is I cannot find evidence either way.

It begs the question whether S.T.H. is being shaped more for them (“Urban Market” consumers) than for longtime fans?

Who knows?

Courtesy of TheEpicDiamondMiner

After all, just remember what my tio Denzel said in Training Day:

“It’s not what you know!
It’s what you can prove!”

I didn’t want to appear as an Alex Jones sort of gamer conspiracy theorist that’s going off on these rabbit holes with inconclusive ends. I just wanted to offer plausible explanations of what is going on.

But the more I see from S.T.H., the more I keep asking,

“Where is this game going? Who is it made for?”

Who knows!?

Maybe it will have the faithful spirit of Yakuza and Snoop and Broadus are along for the ride because they are legit fans.

But let’s be honest, I was not the only one who was bamboozled by the appearance of Tupac from the Summer Game Fest of this year. Just go on YouTube and witness the mixed reactions of many viewers and gamers.

There is something going on with this game, but it’s certainly not looking like it’s going by the way of Nagoshi-san’s original vision.

And thinking about it further bums me out to think that Gang of Dragon… may or may not be coming out in the future…

Whether we like it or not, there is certainly one thing we can say about it all:

Truly, all of this… is stranger than Heaven…

But these are just my opinions, drawn from the trailers and everything I’ve dug up on Stranger Than Heaven.

What do you think?

Is Tupac’s appearance a brilliant crossover or a sign this game is leaving longtime Yakuza fans behind?

Will you be pre-ordering it, or are you sitting this one out?

Do you believe Snoop, Broadus, and the team are true fans of the series, or is this mainly a play for a wider mainstream audience?

Drop your opinions down below; I read every single one and love the discussion.

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Share this with your Yakuza crew (or anyone who needs to hear the truth about the trailers), and I’ll see you in the next one.

Thank you for reading. God bless, and stay legendary!