Founded in 2021, the studio was working on a game funded by NetEase announced just under a year ago, but the studio has reportedly collapsed.
It was just last December when Nagoshi Studio unveiled Gang of Dragon, a spiritual successor to the Nagoshi-created series Like a Dragon/Yakuza from Sega, at The Game Awards in Los Angeles. But since the announcement, NetEase reportedly cut funding on the game's development, and the studio itself has been dissolved according to a report of company dissolutions by Kanpo, the official government gazette of Japan.
Toshihiro Nagoshi left Sega in 2021 as its chief creative officer, as well as head of the Yakuza developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. That same year, Nagoshi founded Nagoshi Studio under NetEase, revealing Gang of Dragon four years later. This past March, Bloomberg reported that NetEase pulled back funding on the game after the studio required addition funding of ¥7 billion ($44.5 million) to finish the game, also coinciding with NetEase looking to pull back from gaming.
Other studios have recently split from NetEase, such as Goichi Suda's Grasshopper Manufacture and Anchor Point Studios, but Nagoshi Studio joins the far larger list of studios under NetEase that suffered layoffs or shut down entirely. NetEase has not officially canceled Gang of Dragon, but it is unclear if there is any appetite at NetEase to take the project over the finish line.
Nagoshi has not issued any public statements since Gang of Dragon was revealed in December.
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