Nagoshi Studio, the Tokyo company Toshihiro Nagoshi set up with Chinese gaming giant NetEase after creating the Yakuza series at Sega, has been formally dissolved. According to a notice in the Kanpo, the Japanese government's official gazette, shareholders voted on October 31, 2026 to dissolve and liquidate the company. The notice ran on November 2. The studio never shipped a game. Gang of Dragon, its only announced project, has been in limbo since NetEase stopped funding it in May, and neither Nagoshi nor NetEase has said what will happen to it.
What the gazette notice says
Japan publishes its laws in the Kanpo, and companies have to use it to announce certain legal steps. Under Article 499 of Japan's Companies Act, a company going into liquidation must post a notice there and give its creditors at least two months to come forward. That makes the notice the legal record of the shutdown, even though the studio itself has put out no statement.
Nagoshi Studio's notice, filed from its address in Nishi-Shinjuku, sticks to that legal minimum. It cites the October 31 shareholder resolution, opens a two-month window for creditors that closes in early January 2027, and is signed by the liquidator. It gives no reason and never mentions Gang of Dragon. During liquidation, the liquidator collects what the company is owed, pays its debts and hands out whatever is left before the company is struck off the register.
How the money ran out
NetEase set up Nagoshi Studio in November 2021, shortly after Nagoshi left Sega, where he had led Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, the team behind Yakuza. In March 2026, a NetEase spokesperson confirmed the company would stop funding the studio in May as part of a wider pullback from the developers it backed outside China. Reports at the time said finishing the game would have taken another ¥7 billion, roughly $44.4 million at March exchange rates, and that NetEase had offered to let the team go independent if it paid for the work already done.
From then on, the studio wound down without a word. Its YouTube channel was deleted in April and its website went dark in May. At least seven developers had left by May 31, some for Capcom, Lightspeed Japan and Mixi, and producer Daisuke Sato began describing himself as a former member. By October, according to the corporate register as checked by Japanese reporters, Nagoshi was no longer listed as a director. The shutdown shows the risk of betting a whole studio on one expensive game, the case we made in our opinion piece on studio closures.
What happens to Gang of Dragon
Gang of Dragon was revealed at The Game Awards in December 2025 as a PC action-adventure. Korean actor Ma Dong-seok (Don Lee) was cast as Shin Ji-seong, a senior member of a Korean crime syndicate in Kabukicho, Shinjuku's nightlife district. The trailer showed fistfights, swordplay, gunfights and car chases.
Its Steam page is still up as of November 2, listing the game as "Coming soon" with Nagoshi Studio as both developer and publisher. There is no price and no preorder, so no player has paid for it. What nobody has explained is who now owns the game and its name, or whether anyone will try to finish it.
Yakuza stays at Sega
The series that made Nagoshi's name isn't affected. Yakuza, now sold outside Japan as Like a Dragon, belongs to Sega and is still made by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. The team's next game, Stranger Than Heaven, launches January 15, 2027 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.
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