What is Yakuza 6: The Song of Life?
The end of the Kiryu saga, as advertised in 2016. The series has been apologizing for and profiting from that ending ever since.
Yakuza 6: The Song of Life (Japan December 2016; the West April 17, 2018; about a million copies) is named for its Japanese subtitle, Inochi no Uta, "Poem of Life". Kiryu leaves prison in 2016 to find Haruka comatose and her infant son, Haruto, in his arms. The search for the father takes him between Kamurocho and Onomichi, a real Hiroshima port town the studio rebuilt as the game's second city.
THE FIRSTS
A hinge entry
Yakuza 6 · Western box (PS4)
Kiryu's dragon at rest, Haruka and Haruto in front of it: the franchise's most openly sentimental cover, for its most openly sentimental game.
The Dragon Engine debut
First game on the new technology: seamless interiors, physics brawls, a smaller but denser Kamurocho.
The staged farewell
It ends with Kiryu faking his death to keep his family safe, a full stop the marketing leaned on hard. Later games keep retrieving him, as a phantom in Like a Dragon, the lead of Gaiden, and co-lead of Infinite Wealth, which has made The Song of Life less an ending than a hinge.