Yakuza 8, now officially titled Like a Dragon 8, will be released in early 2024 and will unexpectedly feature a return for original series hero Kazuma Kiryu.

Announced during a stream from developer RGG Studio, the game will also see the return of Yakuza: Like a Dragon heroes Ichiban Kasuga, Koichi Adachi, and Yu Nanba. We saw a teaser trailer featuring the Kasuga and Kiryu (who has a new, grey haircut) wandering through the fictional Kamurocho. The game will be released for PS4/5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Steam.

Onstage, the game's producer and two voice actors appeared to tease the game, saying that this would be the story of both characters, both of whom will lead a party. It appears to be an RPG again, in the vein of Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon. The team also said it will be "the largest game to date" in the series. Kiryu will apparently also introduce a new fighting style in the game.

As for why Kiryu is returning, the team was coy, but they said the game's theme is about "the man with all the weight of the past on his back, and the man with all the weight of the future on his back".

We'll get an explanation for how Kiryu returns in the spin-off, Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, which arrives in 2023.

This will be the first mainline Yakuza game made without series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi, who has left the studio to create his own with NetEase.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Disney is officially taking on the likes of Magic: The Gathering, the Pokémon Trading Card Game, and Yu-Gi-Oh with its own TCG called Lorcana.

Featuring the likes of Mickey Mouse, Frozen's Elsa, Robin Hood, and Stitch, the first handful of cards available at D23 are already selling for thousands of dollars and piquing the interest of card game players around the world.

Despite Disney's annual fan expo featuring the world's biggest franchises like Star Wars and Marvel, one of the most popular booths at D23 is for Lorcana, with Disney quickly running out of the seven collectible cards it was handing out at the event.

While a Mickey Mouse card was handed out to anyone who attended, a special collector box featuring the remaining six cards - Cruella De Vil, Elsa, Captain Hook, Maleficent, Robin Hood, and Stitch — was only available to the first 300 attendees on each day.

Both promotions were intended to give card game fans a look at Lorcana ahead of its release in fall 2023 but, as one Reddit user reported, hundreds of people were already queued up early in the morning, meaning those arriving after even 9 am had no chance whatsoever - at least not for free.

Ebay is currently filled with the cards, with Mickey selling in the range of $250 to $300 and the six-card set selling for $2,000 or more. These seven cards are all confirmed to be available in Lorcana's first set when it's released next year, but will not be holographic in the wide release.

This first collection already features unique numbering and a D23 stamp that definitely won't be available in the packs, so if the game blows up and proves incredibly successful, the current $2,000 price tag may seem like pennies in a few years.

Card games certainly have precedence for pricey pieces, with perhaps the most infamous example being Magic: The Gathering's Black Lotus card which sells for at least $10,000. A particularly rare one also broke records last year when it sold for more than $500,000.

These Lorcana prices are therefore causing a bit of concern for its potential players. "I'm interested in the game but I'm genuinely concerned that it will turn into a collector's game," said Giang Nguyen, Keyforge's Vietnamese national champion and competitive Flesh and Blood player.

Let's tour our Disney Lorcana booth together! #D23 #D23Expo2022 #DisneyLorcana #Ravensburger pic.twitter.com/ZXD9MfOCiX

— Disney Lorcana (@DisneyLorcana) September 10, 2022

"Kids will want the cards and their parents will try to get them, so demand will be so high," he added. "If Mickey is busted and exclusive and costs upwards of $1,000 then there's no way I'm playing this game."

The worry is that, ironically, Disney might be almost too big to make a card game work, as if people can't access the product then they simply can't play. Vice president of product design at Disney John Balen has already promised an "unprecedented" amount of characters and Lorcana "will contain more original Disney artwork than any other single product ever created" — something desirable for collectors regardless of the TCG format.

Disney will release four sets per year, "which sounds great in terms of quantity of support, but we need to ensure that the sets support the meta in a healthy manner rather than be a sweatshop for collectors' items," said Shen Ang, a fellow competitive Flesh and Blood, and ex-Digimon TCG player.

"In Pokémon and Digimon, the new sets, more often than not, make older decks obsolete," he continued. A new set came out every two to three months, and the meta immediately shifts, and you'd need to build a deck from scratch again. This was not very player friendly and takes the enjoyment out of the game.

"That said, I'm very interested in the game because I can see them trying very hard to design this as a legitimate, competitive, complex game that is also fun for casual and hardcore Disney enjoyers. It's the first time a family-friendly IP like Disney is doing this and saying 'hey, we're making a serious game'. This is not something like Top Trumps. It's real interactive gameplay."

And actual game mechanics are ultimately more important than collectability in a card game. The D23 Mickey Mouse might be worth hundreds of dollars, but if a regular version, with the same text and abilities, is readily available in booster packs, then people can at least play the game. It's similar to skins in Fortnite - players can pay more to look fancy but there's no difference in actual gameplay.

There are still many unanswered questions around Lorcana that Disney will try to address ahead of its launch next year, but the company has presented itself confidently so far.

"The Disney Lorcana team is an incredible and passionate group with over a century of combined experience creating trading card games," said brand manager and Lorcana co-designer Ryan Miller. "Great care has gone into delivering an unforgettable world and gameplay experience that will be equally fun for Disney superfans, trading card game beginners, and the most enthusiastic and advanced players."

D23 produced a ton of other news over the weekend too, with major announcements from the likes of Marvel and Star Wars headlining the event.

The Mandalorian Season 3 received its first trailer, the line-up for Marvel's Thunderbolts was finally revealed, Christian Slater was confirmed to join the cast of Willow.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Disney is officially taking on the likes of Magic: The Gathering, the Pokémon Trading Card Game, and Yu-Gi-Oh with its own TCG called Lorcana.

Featuring the likes of Mickey Mouse, Frozen's Elsa, Robin Hood, and Stitch, the first handful of cards available at D23 are already selling for thousands of dollars and piquing the interest of card game players around the world.

Despite Disney's annual fan expo featuring the world's biggest franchises like Star Wars and Marvel, one of the most popular booths at D23 is for Lorcana, with Disney quickly running out of the seven collectible cards it was handing out at the event.

While a Mickey Mouse card was handed out to anyone who attended, a special collector box featuring the remaining six cards - Cruella De Vil, Elsa, Captain Hook, Maleficent, Robin Hood, and Stitch — was only available to the first 300 attendees on each day.

Both promotions were intended to give card game fans a look at Lorcana ahead of its release in fall 2023 but, as one Reddit user reported, hundreds of people were already queued up early in the morning, meaning those arriving after even 9 am had no chance whatsoever - at least not for free.

Ebay is currently filled with the cards, with Mickey selling in the range of $250 to $300 and the six-card set selling for $2,000 or more. These seven cards are all confirmed to be available in Lorcana's first set when it's released next year, but will not be holographic in the wide release.

This first collection already features unique numbering and a D23 stamp that definitely won't be available in the packs, so if the game blows up and proves incredibly successful, the current $2,000 price tag may seem like pennies in a few years.

Card games certainly have precedence for pricey pieces, with perhaps the most infamous example being Magic: The Gathering's Black Lotus card which sells for at least $10,000. A particularly rare one also broke records last year when it sold for more than $500,000.

These Lorcana prices are therefore causing a bit of concern for its potential players. "I'm interested in the game but I'm genuinely concerned that it will turn into a collector's game," said Giang Nguyen, Keyforge's Vietnamese national champion and competitive Flesh and Blood player.

Let's tour our Disney Lorcana booth together! #D23 #D23Expo2022 #DisneyLorcana #Ravensburger pic.twitter.com/ZXD9MfOCiX

— Disney Lorcana (@DisneyLorcana) September 10, 2022

"Kids will want the cards and their parents will try to get them, so demand will be so high," he added. "If Mickey is busted and exclusive and costs upwards of $1,000 then there's no way I'm playing this game."

The worry is that, ironically, Disney might be almost too big to make a card game work, as if people can't access the product then they simply can't play. Vice president of product design at Disney John Balen has already promised an "unprecedented" amount of characters and Lorcana "will contain more original Disney artwork than any other single product ever created" — something desirable for collectors regardless of the TCG format.

Disney will release four sets per year, "which sounds great in terms of quantity of support, but we need to ensure that the sets support the meta in a healthy manner rather than be a sweatshop for collectors' items," said Shen Ang, a fellow competitive Flesh and Blood, and ex-Digimon TCG player.

"In Pokémon and Digimon, the new sets, more often than not, make older decks obsolete," he continued. A new set came out every two to three months, and the meta immediately shifts, and you'd need to build a deck from scratch again. This was not very player friendly and takes the enjoyment out of the game.

"That said, I'm very interested in the game because I can see them trying very hard to design this as a legitimate, competitive, complex game that is also fun for casual and hardcore Disney enjoyers. It's the first time a family-friendly IP like Disney is doing this and saying 'hey, we're making a serious game'. This is not something like Top Trumps. It's real interactive gameplay."

And actual game mechanics are ultimately more important than collectability in a card game. The D23 Mickey Mouse might be worth hundreds of dollars, but if a regular version, with the same text and abilities, is readily available in booster packs, then people can at least play the game. It's similar to skins in Fortnite - players can pay more to look fancy but there's no difference in actual gameplay.

There are still many unanswered questions around Lorcana that Disney will try to address ahead of its launch next year, but the company has presented itself confidently so far.

"The Disney Lorcana team is an incredible and passionate group with over a century of combined experience creating trading card games," said brand manager and Lorcana co-designer Ryan Miller. "Great care has gone into delivering an unforgettable world and gameplay experience that will be equally fun for Disney superfans, trading card game beginners, and the most enthusiastic and advanced players."

D23 produced a ton of other news over the weekend too, with major announcements from the likes of Marvel and Star Wars headlining the event.

The Mandalorian Season 3 received its first trailer, the line-up for Marvel's Thunderbolts was finally revealed, Christian Slater was confirmed to join the cast of Willow.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Update:

Sony shared a first look at some of the items that will be available as part of its free PlayStation Stars loyalty program, as well as a timeline for when you can try to collect them yourself.

Sony's Grace Chen said the program will begin rolling out in certain regions of Asia later this month. It will then launch in the Americas and Europe in the weeks that follow, but no specific timeline was given.

Alongside the new timeline, PlayStation revealed some of the first digital collectibles players will be able to earn through the program, including a PocketStation, Toro and Kuro, Polygon Man, and Punto from Ape Escape 2.

Check out the digital collectibles in the video below.

Original Story:

Sony has announced a new reward points programme called PlayStation Stars that will allow players to earn points with real cash value.

Announced on the PlayStation Blog, the loyalty programme will begin later this year (though Sony didn't say when exactly) and will be free to sign up to. Players will be able to complete objectives - with some as simple as playing a game once a month - to earn points that can be later redeemed on the PlayStation Store or for other rewards.

The catalogue of items " may include PSN wallet funds and select PlayStation Store products," and members of PlayStation Plus will also receive points for purchasing items on the store, similar to the My Nintendo programme on Switch.

Outside of PlayStation Store related rewards, users can also earn "digital collectibles" that are "digital representations of things PlayStation fans enjoy, including figurines of beloved and iconic characters from games and other forms of entertainment, as well as cherished devices that tap into Sony’s history of innovation."

Additionally, according to The Washington Post, the first player to get the Platinum trophy in certain games will receive an extra special award, which no one else can get. It's not clear exactly how this will work - there's mention of it being within a local time zone, so it could be a territory race for the Platinum rather than a global one - but PlayStation has promised it will crack down on any attempts to get the rewards through fraudulent means.

New collectibles will be added regularly, with Sony stating that some will be particularly rare and something for players to continuously work towards.

The programme will mark another upgrade to Sony's digital offerings as it recently introduced new PlayStation Plus tiers. While the basic tier is more or less the same as the previous PlayStation Plus, the middle and most expensive tiers offer hundreds of extra games in a service similar to Xbox Game Pass.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

God of War: Ragnarok is only a couple months away, and it just got a juicy new trailer full of gameplay, story details, and even a little bit of a fight with Thor himself.

The trailer was revealed during today's State of Play showcase, alongside an announcement for a Limited Edition God of War: Ragnarok-themed DualSense controller. In it, we get a deeper look at the relationship between Kratos and Atreus, some of the adversaries they'll face (including a giant jellyfish?) and how the Norse god Tyr may fit into all of it.

The trend throughout the trailer is Atreus keeping a secret from his father, and his father following his path despite not understanding where it leads them, as well as questioning whether fate is truly binding. It also shows Kratos fighting in a variety of new locations, including a lush forest and one that looks like outer space.

New moves are put on display too, showing Kratos jumping across gaps by pulling himself quickly with the Blades of Chaos or picking up rocks to fling with them. The trailer culminates in a glimpse at a fight we all knew was coming, with Kratos facing off against Thor.

On the other hand, the Limited Edition controller features a blue and white design with a pair of wolves howling on the touchpad. It will be available for pre-order starting September 27 before launching alongside Ragnarok itself on November 9.

Take a look at all of the announcements from State of Play for more info on upcoming Playstation games.

God of War: Ragnarok is only a couple months away, and it just got a juicy new trailer full of gameplay, story details, and even a little bit of a fight with Thor himself.

The trailer was revealed during today's State of Play showcase, alongside an announcement for a Limited Edition God of War: Ragnarok-themed DualSense controller. In it, we get a deeper look at the relationship between Kratos and Atreus, some of the adversaries they'll face (including a giant jellyfish?) and how the Norse god Tyr may fit into all of it.

The trend throughout the trailer is Atreus keeping a secret from his father, and his father following his path despite not understanding where it leads them, as well as questioning whether fate is truly binding. It also shows Kratos fighting in a variety of new locations, including a lush forest and one that looks like outer space.

New moves are put on display too, showing Kratos jumping across gaps by pulling himself quickly with the Blades of Chaos or picking up rocks to fling with them. The trailer culminates in a glimpse at a fight we all knew was coming, with Kratos facing off against Thor.

On the other hand, the Limited Edition controller features a blue and white design with a pair of wolves howling on the touchpad. It will be available for pre-order starting September 27 before launching alongside Ragnarok itself on November 9.

Take a look at all of the announcements from State of Play for more info on upcoming Playstation games.

Team Ninja has announced its next game, Rise of the Ronin a PS5 console exclusive coming in 2024.

The debut trailer showed an open-world game set during the modernization period of Japan after the arrival of Commodore Perry. The main character, an unnamed Ronin, is seen traversing Japan, jumping off buildings, and using gliders.

Set at the end of the Edo Period in late 19th-century japan, Rise of the Ronin is set during a tumultuous time of civil war between the shogun and anti-shogunate forces. Players will become the Ronin, a warrior without a master who is free to make their own choices.

Players will be able to use both katanas and new weapons such as firearms, which began to enter Japan during this time. The developers call this time "the darkest and ugliest chapters" in Japan's history and hopes to showcase this new era in the country.

Koei Tecmo is also promising a "multilayered story" that showcases the Bakumatsu period and that each character the player meets will have their own "brand of justice and motivations."

For more new announcements from today's State of Play check out IGN's full round-up.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

Team Ninja has announced its next game, Rise of the Ronin a PS5 console exclusive coming in 2024.

The debut trailer showed an open-world game set during the modernization period of Japan after the arrival of Commodore Perry. The main character, an unnamed Ronin, is seen traversing Japan, jumping off buildings, and using gliders.

Set at the end of the Edo Period in late 19th-century japan, Rise of the Ronin is set during a tumultuous time of civil war between the shogun and anti-shogunate forces. Players will become the Ronin, a warrior without a master who is free to make their own choices.

Players will be able to use both katanas and new weapons such as firearms, which began to enter Japan during this time. The developers call this time "the darkest and ugliest chapters" in Japan's history and hopes to showcase this new era in the country.

Koei Tecmo is also promising a "multilayered story" that showcases the Bakumatsu period and that each character the player meets will have their own "brand of justice and motivations."

For more new announcements from today's State of Play check out IGN's full round-up.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

Project Eve, the extremely shiny-looking action game shown off last year from Korean studio Shift Up, has reemerged at Sony's State of Play with a new title and release window: it's coming in 2023, and it's now called Stellar Blade.

The new trailer showed off some of Stellar Blade's slashy gameplay and lovely visuals, as well as gave another taste of the story. We saw a locaiton called Xion, the city of the abandoned, which seems to house thousands of people in a deep sleep due to energy depletion.

From a PS Blog post, we get a little more info about Xion and the old man seen in the trailer, a town elder whose name is Orcal. While on her mission, Eve develops relationships with various people in Xion and helps rebuild the city, though whether or not to help the survivors is a choice left up to Eve.

Interesting, when Project Eve was originally announced, it was said to be for Xbox and PC as well. but now, it's being touted as a PS5-exclusive.

Stellar Blade is a project from Blade & Soul character designer Kim Hung Tae that follows a young woman named Eve in a post-apocalyptic world, fighting off monsters called NA:tives who have invaded earth.

You can catch up with everything else announced during today's State of Play in our roundup.

Project Eve, the extremely shiny-looking action game shown off last year from Korean studio Shift Up, has reemerged at Sony's State of Play with a new title and release window: it's coming in 2023, and it's now called Stellar Blade.

The new trailer showed off some of Stellar Blade's slashy gameplay and lovely visuals, as well as gave another taste of the story. We saw a locaiton called Xion, the city of the abandoned, which seems to house thousands of people in a deep sleep due to energy depletion.

From a PS Blog post, we get a little more info about Xion and the old man seen in the trailer, a town elder whose name is Orcal. While on her mission, Eve develops relationships with various people in Xion and helps rebuild the city, though whether or not to help the survivors is a choice left up to Eve.

Interesting, when Project Eve was originally announced, it was said to be for Xbox and PC as well. but now, it's being touted as a PS5-exclusive.

Stellar Blade is a project from Blade & Soul character designer Kim Hung Tae that follows a young woman named Eve in a post-apocalyptic world, fighting off monsters called NA:tives who have invaded earth.

You can catch up with everything else announced during today's State of Play in our roundup.