Many Japanese publishers have been slowly bringing official game music to Spotify in Japan but the rest of the world has been left out thanks to the usual region lock licensing issues. Today, Sega started making the Yakuza series soundtracks available outside Japan on Spotify for the first time. These have all been available in Japan for a while now but were not accessible outside there. That changed a few hours ago as spotted by user Minntul on Reddit with them now available in Europe, USA, and more. If the albums aren’t playable yet, it is possible they are rolling out slowly across the world. This set of music includes the likes of Yakuza Kiwami, Yakuza 2, Yakuza 3, Yakuza 4, Yakuza 5, and most importantly Yakuza 0. The complete list of soundtracks with links is below:
- Yakuza 1 & 2
- Yakuza Kenzan
- Yakuza 3
- Yakuza 4 Vol. 1 / Vol. 2
- Yakuza Dead Souls Vol. 1 / Vol. 2
- Yakuza 5 Vol. 1 / Vol. 2
- Yakuza Ishin Vol. 1 / Vol. 2
- Yakuza 0 Side A / Side B
- Yakuza Kiwami
Check out an early trailer for Yakuza 0 that has some of the music from the game:
It is worth noting that Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, Judgment, and Yakuza Kiwami 2 are big omissions there. The reason for the absence of the first two is likely that the games themselves are still comparatively new and have their soundtracks available in online stores easily. Yakuza Kiwami 2 on the other hand is yet to receive an official soundtrack in any format.
It is good to see Sega push to make the Yakuza series even more accessible in 2020 with Xbox One ports, a physical remaster collection, and more. Hopefully Sega can make the music available on iTunes worldwide for digital purchase because a lot of Sega soundtracks including Bayonetta are region locked out of India.
