Nagoshi Studio, the developer founded by Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi, has formally dissolved, bringing its work on the crime-action game Gang of Dragon to an end. Japan’s official government gazette, Kanpo, listed the company’s dissolution as taking effect on October 31, 2026. The studio had not released a game before closing. Its first project, Gang of Dragon, was unveiled in 2025 but failed to secure the financing needed to reach completion after investor NetEase withdrew its support.
Polygon reported on November 2 that the dissolution notice appeared in Kanpo, Japan’s official gazette. PC Gamer independently described the same notice and said the studio’s website had disappeared months earlier. The legal dissolution date was October 31. The notice resolves months of uncertainty about the company’s status: its online presence had faded, but no formal announcement had immediately clarified whether the developer was still operating.
Nagoshi Studio was established by Nagoshi after his long career at Sega. The company was intended to give the veteran producer a new platform outside the publisher where he had built much of his reputation. Its closure means the developer will not release the game it had been preparing under the original corporate structure.
Gang of Dragon was first shown at The Game Awards in 2025. Its cinematic reveal presented a crime story set in Tokyo’s Kabukicho district and featured Korean actor Ma Dong-seok. The project was widely compared with the Yakuza and Like a Dragon games because of its urban setting and gangster subject matter, although the available footage was not enough to establish how its gameplay would ultimately differ.
The financial problem became public earlier in 2026. Polygon cited Bloomberg’s March reporting that NetEase had decided to stop funding Nagoshi Studio after learning that the game would require another 7 billion yen, or about $44 million, to finish. The studio reportedly could not find another backer willing to cover that gap. Those figures describe the reported additional funding requirement, not the project’s total development cost.
NetEase has been reducing parts of its gaming portfolio and divesting some overseas investments. Polygon placed Nagoshi Studio’s closure within that broader retrenchment, which has also affected other externally supported development teams. The available reporting does not establish that every studio closure followed the same financial circumstances, but it does show that Nagoshi Studio was not operating in an environment of expanding publisher support.
For Gang of Dragon, the withdrawal of its principal backer created a practical obstacle: a substantial amount of additional financing was reportedly needed, and no replacement investor emerged. The studio’s dissolution now removes the original development organization as well. There has been no confirmed announcement that another publisher has acquired the project or that development will continue elsewhere.
Nagoshi Studio was founded in 2022 by Nagoshi and members of the team associated with Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, the Sega group behind the Yakuza and Like a Dragon franchises. Nagoshi had spent more than 30 years at Sega. His work there included Daytona USA, Shenmue and Super Monkey Ball, before he became closely identified with the Yakuza series.
The closure does not establish that Nagoshi himself is leaving the games industry. It does, however, end the first project announced by his independent studio. The reports do not provide a confirmed account of the project’s completion percentage, the total amount already spent, the future of its intellectual property, or what will happen to every member of the development team. Those details remain unknown unless the company, its former investor or another rights holder provides further information.
For now, the confirmed outcome is narrower but decisive: Nagoshi Studio was dissolved on October 31, NetEase had withdrawn its funding, and Gang of Dragon did not find a replacement backer. The game’s future beyond the closed studio has not been announced.