This is an open-world action game in which players assume the role of a Japanese gangster (Kazuma Kiryu) as he searches for a lost girl. As players explore areas in Tokyo and other cities, they engage in missions that involve fistfights with thugs or rival yakuza members; some fights depict characters using weapons such as pistols, bats, sledgehammers, and pipes. Combat is frenetic, highlighted by screams of pain, gunfire and/or impact sounds, blood-splatter effects, and slow-motion special moves. Players can perform scripted moves after building up a meter; these actions include breaking necks or limbs and using the environment to cause damage (e.g., slamming heads into a wall, beating an enemy with a nearby bicycle). Cutscenes depict more intense acts of violence: characters shot in the head; a gangster shoving a man's face onto hot coals; a character stabbing himself in the belly. The game includes sexual/suggestive material: a man briefly groping a woman's breasts in a nightclub; online chat rooms in which players' character flirts with webcam girls; characters removing their shirts/tops while in provocative poses (e.g., “Mm, so warm…It feels incredible”; “Ah…You're so big”). One area depicts a character dressed in an outfit with a cutout that exposes his buttocks. During the course of the game, Kazuma can order and drink whiskey at a bar; a status icon denotes character's level of intoxication, while his movement becomes harder to control. The words “f**k,” “sh*t,” and “a*shole” appear in the dialogue.