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Nagoshi Studio has been dissolved. The Official Gazette dated November 2, 2026 revealed that the studio was wound up by a shareholders’ meeting resolution on October 31, 2026. It was founded in November 2021 by Toshihiro Nagoshi, the man who led the Like a Dragon series at Sega, which puts it at exactly five years old.
The last thing the studio put in front of the public was the trailer for GANG OF DRAGON, a new action title revealed at The Game Awards 2025 in December 2025. Set in Tokyo’s Kabukicho district in Shinjuku, with actor Ma Dong-seok playing the lead, it was the kind of pitch you understood the instant you saw it. Plenty of people watched that trailer’s photorealistic visuals and heavily produced cutscenes and felt the Like a Dragon DNA running through it.
After that, it was reported that funding from backer NetEase Games had been halted, and news about the game’s development went quiet for a long stretch. Then came the Official Gazette. As sequences go, it is almost cruelly textbook.
This article lays out when and how the dissolution was decided, what Toshihiro Nagoshi built during his Sega years, and where GANG OF DRAGON stands, using only information that can be confirmed as of November 2, 2026. Anywhere speculation enters the picture, it is labeled as speculation.
When was Nagoshi Studio’s dissolution decided? What the Official Gazette revealed
Nagoshi Studio was dissolved by a shareholders’ meeting resolution on October 31, 2026. That resolution was published in the Official Gazette dated November 2, 2026, which is how it became public. The fact that this surfaced in a legal notice rather than an announcement tells you everything you need to know about the situation.
Laid out as a timeline, the acceleration and the stall of these five years come into sharp focus.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| November 2021 | After leaving Sega, Nagoshi founds Nagoshi Studio with investment from NetEase Games |
| December 2025 | New title GANG OF DRAGON revealed at The Game Awards 2025 |
| 2026 (exact date undisclosed) | Reports emerge that NetEase Games has halted funding; no further updates follow |
| October 31, 2026 | Studio dissolved by shareholders’ meeting resolution |
| November 2, 2026 | Dissolution comes to light via publication in the Official Gazette |
The funding halt is reported information, and neither NetEase Games nor Nagoshi Studio has offered an official explanation. Still, a resolution on October 31 appearing in the Official Gazette two days later indicates this was not a decision made at the last minute.
Who is Toshihiro Nagoshi? His defining work at Sega
During his time at Sega, Toshihiro Nagoshi delivered one hit after another across wildly different genres, among them Like a Dragon, Daytona USA, Spikeout and Super Monkey Ball.
Look at that list again and it is genuinely abnormal. An arcade racer, a 3D brawler, a party game about rolling a ball around, and a modern-day crime drama sold on near-live-action presentation. Most creators find one vein and keep mining it. Nagoshi kept changing where he dug.
A lot of people remember how long it took the Like a Dragon series to earn respect overseas, and how explosively it grew once it broke through as Yakuza. The decision to put Kabukicho and Ma Dong-seok in the same trailer for GANG OF DRAGON came straight out of that same instinct. When I saw the reveal, I laughed and thought, here he goes again.
What happens to GANG OF DRAGON? The situation as of November 2026
As of November 2, 2026, there has been no official announcement about the future of GANG OF DRAGON.
What had been made public: the game is set in Tokyo’s Kabukicho district in Shinjuku, actor Ma Dong-seok plays the protagonist, and the trailer showed off photorealistic visuals and meticulously built cutscenes. A release date, platforms and pricing all remain unannounced.
Whether a title whose developer has dissolved simply disappears, or whether the rights survive somewhere else, is not something anyone can state with certainty right now. Past cases have gone both ways. But when a project goes silent right after reports that its investment was pulled, the real question becomes how many years it would take to reach players again. If you want to hold out hope, I see this as a long game.
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Nagoshi Studio’s dissolution: the key points
There are only three confirmed facts. Nagoshi Studio was dissolved by a shareholders’ meeting resolution on October 31, 2026. That came to light in the Official Gazette dated November 2, 2026. And no official announcement has been made about the future of GANG OF DRAGON, the studio’s only revealed title.
The funding halt is a report; the project’s fate is undecided. Mixing those two in with the confirmed facts is how the story gets distorted, so keeping them separate is the correct approach.
Five years in business, one announced title, and a legal notice for an epitaph. Listed as bare numbers it reads dry, but a studio run by the man behind Daytona USA, Super Monkey Ball and Like a Dragon ending up here is also proof that these things get decided on a layer completely separate from a creator’s talent. That GANG OF DRAGON trailer genuinely looked like something, at least at the stage we saw it.
Losing the guy who looked at Kabukicho and Ma Dong-seok and thought “yes, both” is a straightforward shame for the industry.
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Nokko Oda
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