Beloved nerd, noted horror/comedy actor, and internet handsome man Rahul Kohli is going to be in a video game. I don’t mean he’s going to be voice acting (although, you know I wouldn’t hate that at all), but he’s actually going to be featured on a new Trooper Card in the upcoming English version of Sega’s Like a Dragon: Ishin! samurai RPG. He follows in a tradition of famous fans of the series appearing in the Like a Dragon universe.
io9 got a chance to talk to Kohli for the release of the game and his special card, and we asked about how fandom played a part in bringing Like a Dragon to Western audiences. Kohli mentioned that it was originally fans who brought the game over and then the publisher followed.
“ I don’t think this game would have gotten a localised edition if it wasn’t for the community pulling for it and respectfully requesting that they get an opportunity to play it,” Kohli said. He explained that the game’s developer, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, went the whole nine yards for the fans, creating a remastered edition alongside the new English localisation.
“When a community can come together and coordinate, they become as big as the machine, so to speak,” Kohli said. “Which benefits even casual fans like ourselves. I was not part of the the message boards that brought Ishin over to the west. But as a consumer who’s a casual player now, I get to enjoy the fruits of that labour, which has been that of constant enthusiasm.”
Like a Dragon: Ishin! will release in February.