Nagoshi Studio no longer exists. Japan’s Official Gazette, Kanpo, listed the studio among company dissolutions on Monday, November 2, 2026, Video Games Chronicle reported. VGC’s report includes no statement from the studio or from NetEase.
A studio led by the creator of Yakuza
Toshihiro Nagoshi, creator of the Yakuza series, founded the studio in 2021 with NetEase money. Its debut game, Gang of Dragon, was presented as deep into development and starred the South Korean-American actor Ma Dong-seok, known for Train to Busan, The Outlaws and Eternals. In a 2023 interview with VGC, Nagoshi said he would not let down fans of his previous games.
Why it closed
In March 2026, Bloomberg reported that employees had been told NetEase planned to stop funding the project after learning it needed another ¥7 billion, about $44.4 million, to finish.
Part of a wider retreat
The closure is part of NetEase’s scaling back of international development after years of investing in studios around the world:
- T-Minus, FPC and Bad Brain were closed in the first wave of cuts
- NetEase split from Worlds Untold, the Vancouver studio it co-founded in 2023 with former Mass Effect writer Mac Walters, which has paused operations
- It also split from Jar of Sparks, a Seattle studio founded in 2022 by Xbox veteran Jerry Hook
Not every studio has stopped: Grasshopper Manufacture, led by Goichi Suda, and GPTRACK50, led by Hiroyuki Kobayashi, have kept making games without NetEase funding.
This article was written with AI assistance from the sources linked above.
