Nobody Is Happy That Yakuza Studio’s Next Game Is Performing Digital Necromancy On Tupac

Today during Summer Game Fest’s main showcase, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio announced that legendary rapper and activist Tupac Shakur—who died in 1996—will be in its jazzy new historical Yakuza-like, Stranger Than Heaven. Nobody asked for this, and an only slightly larger number like it.

Snoop Dogg, who will also appear in the game, was brought out to explain the puzzling inclusion.

"The Tupac estate and my son and myself, we work very closely together, so it just made sense to put him in this game,” Snoop told Geoff Keighley. “His likeness and his spirit still lives on, and I just feel like it was so connected to what we're doing."

But it’s still an act of digital necromancy involving a man who, crucially, cannot object. The dead deserve to rest, but instead, the modern era turns their ghosts into IP. This isn’t even the first dead person RGG has shamelessly boasted will appear in Stranger Than Heaven. That not-honor goes to Japanese actor Bunta Sugawara, who passed away in 2014. At least in his case, it’s confirmed he’s not getting the Val Kilmer treatment, with actor Takashi Ukaji providing his voice instead of AI. 

Still, the whole thing feels gross, which caused “Tupac” to trend on both X and Bluesky for the wrong reasons.

They're putting Tupac in a Yakuza game with "Snoop Dogg's blessing." Snoop Dogg shills for anything. He would dig up Tupac's bones and shoot them out of a cannon into the sea if it meant a paycheck.

— Mallorie Malcontent ✨ (@sweetbeanscomix.bsky.social) June 5, 2026 at 2:42 PM

First it was the scumbag in Yakuza 3, and now they’re digitally animating Tupac’s corpse? Yeah, I think I might be done with anything RGG does for the foreseeable future. Incredibly tone deaf and disrespectful.

— Coop (@riderstrike.bsky.social) June 5, 2026 at 2:26 PM

"why is tupac trending" *click* "noooooo"

— foaming pipe snake (@guntoucher.bsky.social) June 5, 2026 at 2:53 PM

I'm glad I'm not watching this show live, I feel like I would've instinctively dropped my phone and the double over from psychic damage once Tupac showed up

— Brian M (@legendofnerd.bsky.social) June 5, 2026 at 2:42 PM

I love RGG and I love hiphop and I absolutely hate everything they're doing with this angle.

— Janet Garcia (@gameonysus.bsky.social) June 5, 2026 at 2:25 PM

All this after RGG already found itself in hot water earlier this year for refusing to dismiss a voice actor who admitted to sexual assault and generally dropping the ball on the Yakuza series’ latest remake, Kiwami 3. For some, it’s starting to look like Stranger Than Heaven might end up being the last straw.

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