Stranger than Heaven ‘Kokura’ Trailer Reveals Daito’s Journey to Japan

SEGA and RGG Studio released the “Act 1: Kokura Story Trailer” for Stranger than Heaven on October 16, the first in a planned series of city-focused story trailers for the upcoming action-adventure game. The video follows the first era of protagonist Makoto Daito, who endured persecution in America and stows away on the merchant Orpheus’s so-called “ghost ship” in pursuit of Japan.

RGG Studio is the developer behind SEGA’s Yakuza / Like a Dragon series. Onboard the Orpheus, Daito meets Yu Shinjo, another stowaway who later becomes his best friend. The trailer walks the two through their first encounter with the “harsh reality awaiting” them in Kokura, a city in modern-day Kitakyushu. It depicts Daito’s collisions with the people whose lives intersect his, and the steps that turn him into a showman building the foundation he needs to survive in Japan.

The Kokura video is the first of several; SEGA says subsequent trailers will focus on each city featured in the game, releasing sequentially, one city at a time. A Steam page for the game is live with a January 14, 2027 release date listed. SEGA also opened the official Stranger than Heaven X, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook accounts for follow-up coverage.

What the trailer shows and what is next

Today’s cut is Kokura-only. The next city trailer will follow in the weeks ahead as SEGA builds up to the January launch. Until then, SEGA is keeping the platform list and edition details under wraps, and pricing has not been confirmed. The Kokura trailer runs roughly two and a half minutes. It is set on the Orpheus and in Kitakyushu’s Kokura ward, with the camera tracking Daito from his boarding in America through his first weeks in Japan. Several unnamed supporting characters appear, including a merchant who runs the Orpheus and a woman whom Daito later works with as a showman.

The “ghost ship” framing lines up with the recurring Japanese period-fiction trope of foreigners stowing away on Edo-era merchant vessels, which gives SEGA a clean reason to root a Japan-set story in a protagonist who arrives from outside the country rather than the studio’s usual homegrown yakuza cast.

We will have more on Stranger than Heaven as each subsequent city trailer lands. See our Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds Year 2 DLC story and the Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds arcade announcement for SEGA’s other English-language game news in the meantime.

Edited by Kerwin Stewart, Editor-in-Chief · How we report