Home
News
Stranger Than Heaven
"Three decades on, what choices would he make?"
If you happened to miss the premiere night of this year's Summer Geoffs, RGG Studio's time-hopping Japanese historical crime brawler Stranger Than Heaven received a launch window. That news was largely eclipsed, though, by the announcement that it will include a digitally recreated version of rapper Tupac Shakur. While not the first departed figure confirmed to appear in the game—that distinction belonged to Japanese actor Bunta Sugawara—Shakur's presence naturally prompted considerable surprise. RGG head Masayoshi Yokoyama has now elaborated further on the reasoning behind including Tupac's image in a title centered on the Tojo Clan's origins.
Speaking to Game Informer, Yokoyama explained that Shakur's involvement grew out of casting Snoop Dogg in the game as a smuggler named Orpheus. "When we cast Snoop as Orpheus, we thought, 'We have Snoop Dogg, he's such an incredible person who has all these really interesting relationships in the real world as well'," the developer recalled. "We wanted to bring on these people with relationships for a lot of different roles, and those are the kind of people who we were just talking about before. But we thought – and we discussed this with Snoop, as well – 'What if we had a person who had a relationship in the game and outside of the game that maybe mirrors it in some sense'."
That led to a conversation with Snoop about potential candidates for that role, with Tupac's name surfacing among several suggestions Yokoyama claims came from the rapper's camp. "There were even people at our studio who said, 'Well, if Snoop Dogg and Tupac have this relationship in the game together, you'd probably cry about that because it's so cool," the developer stated, adding that RGG then sought permission from both Tupac's family and his estate. The matter of who approved or contributed input on Tupac's cameo is complicated by the fact that the executor of Shakur's estate is former record executive Tom Whalley, whom Tupac’s sister Sekyiwa Shakur took legal action against in 2022, accusing Whalley of having "effectively embezzled millions of dollars for his own benefit" through his management of Amaru Entertainment, a label overseeing Tupac’s classic and posthumous releases.
When Game Informer raised this issue with Yokoyama, the developer said the studio secured approval from both likeness rights holder Whalley and Tupac's surviving relatives. "Of course, we wanted to have the family involved in every step along the way to make sure this is respectful to his legacy and honors who he was," he continued. "But at the same time, we wanted to not kind of recreate who Tupac was when he passed away. We wanted to try to envision who Tupac might be now, and we did this with the full approval step by step. Going through the family to make sure that everything met it. We wanted to say, 'Okay, if he was still alive now, thirty years later, how would he act? How would he express himself in that way? That's what we're trying to [do], not going into his past, but rather his potential future."
Thus, Tupac's inclusion in the game was driven by his real-life bond with Snoop Dogg during his lifetime, but RGG isn't aiming to replicate him as he was then; instead, it's pursuing a vision of who he might be today had he not been killed nearly three decades ago. I remain quite perplexed and can't say this has eased any of the generally unsettling feelings I've had about Tupac's cameo since its reveal, even if there's no AI voice recreation nonsense involved.
How is a game set across various points in 20th century Japanese history, all before Tupac's birth in 1971, the suitable setting to explore who he could have become in 2026? If this were a modern-day Like A Dragon title, perhaps; but Stranger Than Heaven's whole jazz-infused concept is about reflecting on a nation's past and the Tojo Clan's formation.
If Snoop Dogg simply needed a companion to interact with in the game, why not select one of his living associates? I don't grasp it. That's a sentiment I have to express far too frequently with RGG these days, as their casting decisions continue down paths that understandably alienate many people from the games themselves.