SEGA’s Yakuza series has been a beloved fan-favorite franchise for a while now, and the latest entry may be one of the best yet. Although each game is on PC now, the spinoff detective series may come to an abrupt end over legal disputes for a PC version, which SEGA has apparently been trying to get.

Lost Judgment was recently announced as a sequel to the Yakuza spinoff Judgment, and neither games have come to PC yet despite the entire Yakuza series now on the platform. With PC versions of those games, there was hope the spinoffs would come to the platform one day, but it seems a legal dispute between SEGA and a talent agency are preventing the series from moving further.

According to a new report from a Japanese show business website, the talent agency known as Johnny & Associates who represents Judgment series protagonist Takayuki Yagami (played by Takuya Kimura) doesn’t want to see any PC versions made of the Judgment franchise, and so Sega might bring the series to an abrupt end as the marketing would not be worth it.

Apparently, Johnny & Associates have a strict policy regarding the distribution of their talent’s likeness in media, and “the use of their image online is still limited to a few.” Since PC players have direct and easier access to the internet, this could be seen as a platform with potential issues regarding distribution of a talent’s image.

SEGA has also supposedly been trying to bring the Judgment series to Steam (which includes Judgment and Lost Judgment), however these legal disputes have been blocking their attempts to do so: “The game makers have decided that if they can’t distribute the game on Steam, it would be very difficult from a business standpoint, and the series will end with the second game, Lost Judgment,” the report says.

Funnily enough, the original Judgment game is technically available on PC via Google Stadia. However, considering Johnny & Associates reluctance to embrace the internet, it is possible that they simply did not know how Google Stadia worked or what it actually was.

So we may never see the Judgment series officially come to PC unfortunately, and it looks like their homes will be on console still. The Judgment spinoff has been highly rated so far, and the upcoming sequel is highly anticipated from fans. It's just a shame PC players may never get to experience that same excitement.

What do you think? Are you excited for Lost Judgment? Are you hoping for a PC release of both games at some point? Do you think we will ever get one? And is this the end of Judgment spinoff franchise? Let us know!