Nagoshi Studio Officially Closes After NetEase Ends Funding
Nagoshi Studio has officially closed. The Japanese games studio, backed by the Chinese company NetEase, was founded in 2021 by Toshihiro Nagoshi, the creator of the Yakuza series of crime dramas. Japan's Official Gazette, the government's public notice publication, listed the studio among company dissolutions on November 2, 2026.
The studio's debut game was Gang of Dragon. According to Video Games Chronicle, NetEase chose to stop paying for the project after learning it needed an extra ¥7 billion (US$44.4 million) to reach completion. A studio that depends on one backer has no other source of money to fall back on when that backer steps away.
The funding decision had been public for months. In March 2026, Bloomberg reported that NetEase would stop funding the studio as it cut back on gaming spending. A NetEase spokesperson confirmed the plan. Staff were told in the same month that the money would stop, and NetEase set the end of its financing for May 2026.
Dissolution is the formal legal process that ends a company's existence. It is a different step from a studio pausing work or shrinking its team. The Gazette entry records that the company has been dissolved, which is the point at which the business no longer exists in law.
What it leaves behind is the unfinished project. Gang of Dragon was the work of a team that had been building it since the studio's start. Players who followed the game will not see it come from this company. Whether the game is continued by anyone else has not been announced.
The closure also marks the end of a studio that carried one of the best-known names in Japanese action games into a new company. Nagoshi's earlier work on Yakuza remains a long-running series, and his studio was a separate venture built around a new title.
