Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth Has a Shenmue Reference

Fans of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth recently discovered a reference to Shenmue, with characters discussing an incident revolving around its protagonist, Ryo Suzuki. 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.

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 Suzuki. Mike then recalls how he