In case you missed the opening night of this year’s Summer Geoffs, Like A Dragon/Yakuza devs RGG Studio’s Japanese history-hopping crime brawler Stranger Than Heaven got a release date. That was rather overshadowed, however, by the reveal that it’ll feature a digitally resurrected version of rapper Tupac Shakur. While not the first deceased face to be confirmed as featuring in the game, that honour went to Japanese actor Bunta Sugawara, Shakur’s inclusion naturally raised a lot of eyebrows. RGG boss Masayoshi Yokoyama’s now spoken in more depth about the decision to include Tupac’s likeness in a game about the origins of the Tojo Clan.
Speaking to Game Informer, Yokoyama said Shakur’s inclusion snowballed from casting Snoop Dogg in the game as a smuggler called Orpheus. “When we cast Snoop as Orpheus, we thought, ‘We have Snoop Dogg, he’s such an incredible person who has all these really interesting relationships in the real world as well’,” the developer recalled. “We wanted to bring on these people with relationships for a lot of different roles, and those are the kind of people who we were just talking about before. But we thought – and we discussed this with Snoop, as well – ‘What if we had a person who had a relationship in the game and outside of the game that maybe mirrors it in some sense’.”
Cue a chat with Snoop about who could be a good fit for that role, with Tupac’s name being one of many Yokoyama claims were mentioned by the rapper’s side. “There were even people at our studio who said, ‘Well, if Snoop Dogg and Tupac have this relationship in the game together, you’d probably cry about that because it’s so cool,” the developer said, explaining that RGG then went about getting permission from both Tupac’s family and his estate. The issue of who approved or had what input on Tupac’s cameo in the game is complicated by the fact that the executor of Shakur’s estate is former record executive Tom Whalley, whom Tupac’s sister Sekyiwa Shakur launched legal action against back in 2022, accusing Whalley of having “effectively embezzled millions of dollars for his own benefit” through his management of Amaru Entertainment, a record label which handles Tupac’s classic and posthumous music.
When Game Informer brought that up to Yokoyama, the developer said that the studio sought approval from both likeness rights holder Whalley and Tupac’s living family. “Of course, we wanted to have the family involved in every step along the way to make sure this is respectful to his legacy and honors who he was,” he continued “But at the same time, we wanted to not kind of recreate who Tupac was when he passed away. We wanted to try to envision who Tupac might be now, and we did this with the full approval step by step. Going through the family to make sure that everything met it. We wanted to say, ‘Okay, if he was still alive now, thirty years later, how would he act? How would he express himself in that way? That’s what we’re trying to [do], not going into his past, but rather his potential future.”
So, Tupac’s inclusion in the game was spurred by the real life relationship he had with Snoop Dogg when he was alive, but RGG aren’t seeking to recreate him as he was back then, rather some idea of who he could be today if he’d not been murdered nearly 30 years ago. I’m very confused and can’t say this has assuaged any of the generally icky feelings I’ve had about Tupac’s cameo since it was revealed, even if there’s no AI voice recreation bollocks involved.
How is a game set at various points in 20th century Japanese history, all of which are prior to Tupac’s birth in 1971, the ideal place to try and dig into who he could have been in 2026? If this was a modern day Like A Dragon entry, then maybe, but Stranger Than Heaven’s whole jazz-infused shtick is that it’s a look back to a country’s past and the formation of the Tojo Clan.
If Snoop Dogg just needed a mate to play off of in the game, why not pick one of his buddies who’s still kicking? I don’t get it. That’s a phrase I have to wheel out far too often with RGG these days, as their casting choices continue to go down roads that understandably sour many people on the games themselves.
