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.
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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Isaiah Colbert
