Stranger Than Heaven director addresses controversy over Tupac’s posthumous casting

Ryu Ga Gotoku shook the gaming world after revealing that Tupac would play a posthumous role in their upcoming historic yakuza title, Stranger Than Heaven.

Needless to say, this announcement sparked a lively debate on social media. Some players were excited about the rapper’s inclusion in the game, while others took issue with the ethics behind such an unconventional casting.

Dexerto got the chance to speak with Masayoshi Yokoyama, Executive Director of Stranger Than Heaven, at Summer Game Fest in an interview panel where he opened up about the studio’s decision to use Tupac’s likeness.

Tupac’s family approved his Stranger Than Heaven appearance

When asked about the moral quandary of using a deceased person’s likeness in a video game, Yokoyama clarified that such debates aren’t really part of Japanese culture, explaining that films, TV shows, and numerous video games developed in the country have done this for many years to the point where it’s become quite normalized.

“In Japan, there isn’t really much sensitivity over this issue, because this is something that’s kind of part and parcel of the Japanese gaming culture,” he said. “It’s been something that people have done in the gaming industry. I can’t really give exact titles — those aren’t titles we’ve made — but for 20 plus years, there’ve been a lot of people that modeled their characters after actors alive and deceased. So you probably actually all probably played games that have characters that were modeled on them without knowing it.”

That being said, he assured us that the studio received enthusiastic permission from Tupac’s family and his estate before moving forward, saying that the casting wasn’t just due to his celebrity status, but more so that he fit the story RGG is trying to tell in Stranger Than Heaven.

“The reason why we chose not just Tupac, but Snoop Dogg and all these other characters that you will see in the game, was because they fit into the story that we’re trying to tell,” he clarified. “Makoto Daito’s story has a lot to do with singing. He starts as a singer. He eventually becomes a showman, or a promoter for musical shows and for other kinds of entertainment shows. 

“We wanted to have a character who could guide him through all this or be an advisor, and that’s why we chose the actors to play characters in the game who have both a relationship to performing and to music, as well. It’s not like we just cast them because we got these really cool people to have in the game. It’s because they have a direct relation to the story that we want to tell.”

CAPCOM

In keeping with Yokoyama’s claims, Capcom most recently used the likeness of the late, legendary Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune as a face model for Onimusha: Way of the Sword’s lead character, Musashi Miyamoto.

“When we were discussing getting Tupac in the game, we discussed the idea ourselves, and we discussed it with Snoop Dogg. We said, ‘Hey, we want to have this person that has a relationship to you to play this role with this character that has a relationship to your character, who would be a good character and or who would be a person to fit that role.

“Tupac came about from Snoop Dogg. In our studio, we have a lot of people who have their own images of Tupac that really fit that, as well. We discussed it withTupac’s estate and his family, and we got their approval and we negotiated, and everybody was okay with it. And we were like, okay, this seems like it’s a good fit.”

RGG made sure to pay “due respect” to Tupac’s memory

Tupac isn’t the only deceased celebrity starring in Stranger Than Heaven; Yokoyama also told us that legendary Nikyo film star Sugawara Bunta is also included in the game, who died in November 2014.

“He occupies a place in the Japanese cultural lore like Marlon Brando, in that kind of sense,” Yokoyama said. “We wanted to have him in this game because he fit. And when we did it, we wanted to make sure that we did it with respect and to honor his memory, not just throwing him in there. So we made sure that we talked to his estate, we talked to his family, we got their approval.

“We had them for every step of the way, not just looking at what we were doing, but telling them what the role would be and what the character would be, and we made it so not just that they approved of it, but they thought, ‘This is something that we want to see.’

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio

Snoop Dogg and several other celebrities are playing roles in RGG Studio’s Stranger Than Heaven.

“Once they gave us their approval for that, then we started making those characters. We had their input along the way to make sure that we were doing due respect to their memory. That was one of the ways that we wanted to show respect to the legacy of these incredible performers of both Sugawara Bunta and Tupac.”

Stranger Than Heaven is slated to release on January 15, 2027 on XBOX Series X|S, Steam, and PlayStation 5.