Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza Was Almost A Fishing Game With Kiryu
Briefly

"Long story short, it never came to fruition, but keywords like 'ship,' 'sea,' and 'fighting'... evolved into the concept of pirates."
"To avoid that, we would need a neutral character who could act the way players anticipate from a protagonist... the downside is that we'd end up with a boring protagonist."
Read at GameSpot
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