RGG Studio drops PS4 for Stranger Than Heaven, builds for current-gen only

Here is the roster move: RGG Studio’s Stranger Than Heaven will not come to PlayStation 4. Producer Hiroyuki Sakamoto told IGN at Gamescom Asia x Thailand Game Show 2026 that the team chose to drop previous-gen platforms and make an experience “best enjoyed natively on current-gen consoles like the PS5.”¹

The game launches January 15, 2027 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.¹

That is a change from the studio’s recent habits. Every RGG game since the 2020 launch of PS5 and Xbox Series X|S has kept a foot in the older generation. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, from 2024, was built to run across two eras of PlayStation and Xbox. Xbox One support was dropped for Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties earlier this year, but PS4 support stayed.¹

Sakamoto described the goal as “something entirely fresh” at the best quality the team can produce right now.¹ He said past hardware limits capped how many characters could appear on screen at once, among other things the team gave up on. With the PS5 as the target, he said, the game shows more characters on screen at the same time than any prior RGG title, and character quality rises as well.¹

Sakamoto also said he thinks the team reached its aim of a richer visual experience with a stronger artistic identity than anything the studio has done before.¹ In a separate hands-on preview, IGN’s Michael Higham found plenty to like, though he had some lingering reservations about the game’s digital recreation of the late rapper Tupac Shakur.¹

In the same conversation, Sakamoto confirmed that Stranger Than Heaven will include in-game cheats. IGN has a separate story on those.¹

Our read: Sakamoto’s comments tie the PS4 cut to two concrete items: crowd size and character quality, both of which he says were held back before. If that holds in the finished game, the payoff will show in dense street scenes and close-ups. The open question is how much of it players will see in practice, and the January release will settle that. Standings check: RGG Studio’s new game has dropped PS4 and targets PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC only.

What it costs you: if you still play on a PS4, this one is not coming to your box. If you own a PS5, Xbox Series X|S or PC, the studio says it designed the game around that hardware first.¹

Footnotes

1. ign.com, “RGG Studio Skips Last-Gen for Stranger Than Heaven”. Retrieved November 2, 2026. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹