If you thought the Summer Game Fest announcements were cooked this year, RGG Studio just turned the heat up to max. The studio behind the Like A Dragon/Yakuza series confirmed that their upcoming historical crime brawler Stranger Than Heaven will feature a digitally resurrected Tupac Shakur - and it wasn't even the first deceased celebrity confirmed for the game.
That honor actually went to legendary Japanese actor Bunta Sugawara, so apparently RGG was warming us up before dropping the Tupac reveal like a final boss nobody saw coming. The Tupac news understandably stole the entire show, with eyebrows raised so high they practically clipped through the ceiling.
So what's the actual deal here?
According to RGG Studio head Masayoshi Yokoyama, speaking to Rock Paper Shotgun, the inclusion isn't just a cameo skin or a cheap publicity stunt. The studio intends to explore Tupac's "potential future" - essentially imagining who he could have been if he were still alive today. That's a bold creative swing, and frankly the kind of unhinged energy we've come to expect from the studio that made a turn-based JRPG out of a Yakuza spinoff and somehow nailed it.
RGG is known for swinging for the fences with bizarre-yet-earnest storytelling, so the idea of them treating a digital Tupac with genuine narrative respect isn't completely out of left field. Whether the execution lands is a whole other question that we'll only be able to answer once we get our hands on the game.
The ethics side quest is already loading
Digitally resurrecting deceased public figures is one of gaming's - and entertainment's - spiciest debates, and Tupac's likeness has been controversial territory ever since that hologram appearance at Coachella 2012. Expect that discourse to respawn with a vengeance as more details emerge.
Stranger Than Heaven got its release date reveal during the opening night of Summer Game Fest (what some are already calling "Summer Geoffs" in honor of the inimitable Geoff Keighley), and the Tupac news has kept it firmly in the conversation since. Whether this ends up being a legendary story move or a PR aggro pull remains to be seen - but one thing is certain: RGG Studio is absolutely not playing it safe.
