Gang of Dragon looks cancelled as Nagoshi Studios closes

Toshihiro Nagoshi’s first project away from Sega looks to have quietly fallen apart, and nobody involved has said a word about it.

Gang of Dragon was revealed at The Game Awards 2025, fronted by Nagoshi, the former general director of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, who left Sega to launch his own studio. It was billed as a fresh start outside the Yakuza universe he’d spent decades shaping. Since that reveal, there’s been silence. Now the signs point to something far worse than a delayed update.

Gang of Dragon trailer from The Game Awards 2025

The studio has vanished

Nagoshi Studios’ YouTube channel is gone. So is its official website. Co-head Daisuke Sato has updated his bio to read “Ex-Nagoshi Studios”, and the Google Business listing for its Tokyo Ebisu office is marked as permanently closed.

NetEase pulled the plug

Bloomberg reported in March that NetEase, the publisher funding the project, declined to pay out $44 million needed to finish the game. That’s a steep figure for a title that never got a proper gameplay reveal, and it appears the studio couldn’t survive without it.

No formal cancellation has been announced. Strangely, Gang of Dragon is still listed on Steam, suggesting whoever handled the shutdown simply forgot to pull the page before locking the doors for good.

It’s a quiet, unceremonious end for a project that arrived with a real pedigree behind it. Nagoshi built his reputation on Yakuza, one of Sega’s most consistent franchises, and his departure to start something new carried genuine weight. Whether he resurfaces elsewhere isn’t clear, but for now, Gang of Dragon looks finished before it started properly.

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