Nagoshi Studio has formally dissolved after a shareholders' meeting resolution on October 31, closing the first independent studio founded by Toshihiro Nagoshi about five years after it was created. The dissolution notice was published on November 2 in Official Gazette No. 240, with Minoru Morinaga named as representative liquidator.
The filing gives the closure legal force on a day when readers are still searching for what becomes of GANG OF DRAGON, the studio's debut project. The game was unveiled at The Game Awards in December 2025 and remains listed on Steam with its release date marked as to be announced, even though no official cancellation has been announced.
That makes the shutdown more than a paper exercise. Nagoshi founded the studio in November 2021 with full funding from NetEase Games after leaving SEGA, where he had led the Like a Dragon series. The company later announced its official launch in January 2022, but the path to a finished game narrowed sharply after reported in March that NetEase had decided to stop financial support starting in May.
At that point, completing GANG OF DRAGON was said to require at least 7 billion yen in additional funding, and NetEase was reportedly open to letting the studio become independent if it paid to keep its development assets and intellectual property. By May, the studio's official website had become inaccessible and key development staff had left. In early October, Japanese media reported that former executives including Nagoshi had been removed from the corporate registry's board of directors.
What remains unresolved is the part that matters most to players: the project itself has not been formally killed. No official statement has said the game will resume, be transferred, or be backed by new investors. For now, the legal life of Nagoshi Studio has ended, but the status of GANG OF DRAGON has not.
