rebuild the clan. The story ends with Kiryu beginning a new life as a civilian with Haruka as his newly-adopted daughter. Development The game was first hinted at in August 2005 as "Project J." Later that month, details were announced. Producer Toshihiro Nagoshi explained "For a while now, I've wanted to create a powerful, gritty drama where you feel the sense of humanity," Nagoshi explained. "After a lot of thought, this is the product that we've arrived at." The budget of the game was 2.4 billion yen (approx. $21 million). Nagoshi chose the focus on yakuzas due to the amount of violence the subject tends to incorporate. This was also done in order to attract more gamers with this theme, believing there were less gamers during the time the game was made. Most of the team members are from different backgrounds, such as developers that have their roots in the arcade with titles such as Virtua Fighter 3 and Super Monkey Ball, as well as team members having experience in novel console titles like Panzer Dragoon and Jet Set Radio. The team members all felt that they went against their careers considering that the new game didn't match anything they had previously done. Nagoshi felt that this was an advantage, making them all play on even playing field. Anything that was done had to go through Nagoshi first, since only he had a concrete idea of how the game is going to end up. During development, the team researched hostess clubs, which are prominently featured in the story, even attending hostess clubs themselves, including Roppongi and Kabukicho. The fictional setting of Kamurocho in the game was closely based on the red-light district of Kabukicho in Tokyo. The development team wanted to accurately portray yakuza, especially such as their obsession with jingi, their code of honor. Originally the game had scenes where pinky fingers were cut off, a traditional punishment, but these scenes were removed so that CERO would give Yakuza a favorable rating. Though using the gameplay schematics of one of Nagoshi's earlier titles, SpikeOut, as basis for the combat, Yakuza utilized an entirely new engine crafted for the game. Some of the software used to help develop the game were Autodesk Softimage. Writing The game's development team was divided into two groups: one writing the main plot and the other writing the subplots. Novelist Hase Seishu was the lead