The Judgment Games Are Coming to PC, and They Work Solidly

[Update: Judgment and Lost Judgment on PC are available right now. We’ve updated the article to reflect the adjusted date.]

It’s always good news when a major Japanese console game release makes it to PC. However, older gamers know to view such announcements with a bit of wariness, as it wasn’t that long ago that the PC editions of Japanese games were, at best, a bit of a hit-or-miss prospect with regards to functionality and performance. Sega and RGG Studio appear to have put another nail in that era’s coffin, though, if the Judgment games on PC are anything to go by.

I received early access to the PC ports of Judgment and Lost Judgment, and they’ve made a good impression so far. Keep reading for some answers to your potential questions about Judgment and Lost Judgment on PC.

How do I get the Judgment games on PC, and how much do they cost?

Both Judgment and its sequel Lost Judgment launch on PC on September 15, 2022. They’ll be available via Steam, and join other RGG Studio titles such as Yakuza: Like A Dragon, Yakuza Kiwami and Kiwami 2, Yakuza 0, Yakuza 6, and the Yakuza Remastered Collection.

• Judgment Digital Standard Edition is available for $39.99 USD
• Lost Judgment Digital Standard Edition costs $59.99 USD, and includes the School Stories Expansion Pack.
  • The Kaito Files DLC is sold separately for $29.99 USD
• There’s also a Digital Deluxe Bundle that includes both games and all the DLC for $98.87 USD
  • Includes Judgment, Lost Judgment, School Stories, and The Kaito Files

For my testing Sega granted me access to a for-media build that was identical to the Digital Deluxe Bundle. That bundle at least, may include the optional “Pack” DLC released for the games on consoles. For example, after checking my mailbox at the start of Judgment, I received the items from the Detective Life Fun Pack, Play Spot Fun Pack, Ultimate Battle Pack, and Girlfriend Present Pack.

Similarly, I noticed that my test of Lost Judgment included access to the optional “Detective Essentials Pack” DLC, which adds additional girlfriend characters, extract recipes, fur colors for the detective dog, and other benefits.

So what’s the Judgment series even about? Are they Yakuza spin-offs?

Technically, the Judgment games are a new series, and stand apart from the Yakuza franchise. However, they’re set in the same world and often the same locations, so there’s plenty of intersection and common elements to be found. The Judgment games are also where the brawling and action-adventure style of gameplay that characterized the seven main Yakuza titles was preserved, since Yakuza: Like A Dragon took up the turn-based strategy style.

The series star is Takayuki Yagami (Takuya Kimura), a former defense attorney, now a private investigator. Yagami once worked at the Genda Law Office, and gained notoriety for successfully defending a client in a murder case. This is unusual because, as the game states in its intro, outcomes in Japan’s criminal justice system overwhelmingly favor prosecution. 99.9% of cases end with a guilty verdict. Unfortunately, Yagami’s successful case led to an unjust outcome, leading him to leave the lawyering life and bring justice in his own way – while struggling to keep up with the bills.

In Judgment, Yagami gets caught up in a mysterious string of serial killings of Yakuza in Kamurocho. The sequel, Lost Judgment, ropes Yagami into a high-profile murder where the defense lawyer, Saori Shirosaki, is convinced that crucial details have been overlooked. Lost Judgment also has Yagami infiltrating a high school to investigate bullying allegations. The game received The Kaito Files, an expansion starring Yagami’s partner, ex-Yakuza Masaharu Kaito. In The Kaito Files, Kaito takes on a case in Yagami’s absence, one that turns both uncomfortably personal and unexpectedly high-stakes.

On a personal note, I enjoyed Judgment and Lost Judgment quite a bit, and on their own merits. They’re different from Yakuza, for sure. Yagami and Kaito aren’t as overtly silly as Kiryu and Ichiban, who are big galoots with hearts of gold. But all the games were made with RGG Studio’s keen grasp of cinema, and deliver in spades on both drama and storytelling. I understand if you do end up preferring your Yakuza faves, but they’re well worth playing anyway. For Siliconera’s official word, check out our review of Lost Judgment.

How do the Judgment games on PC actually play? What are the minimum and recommended system requirements?

They play quite well so far! I haven’t finished them, since they’re pretty large titles that I owned on PS4, but I did spend a few hours with each to get a feel for performance on my main PC rig.

You can check the minimum system requirements for Judgment on its Steam page. The Steam page for Lost Judgment is here.

For reference, this is the system I used to play both games.

OS: Windows 11
GPU: Nvidia GTX 3070
RAM: 16GB RAM
CPU: Intel Core i7 3.0Ghz
Install Size: Judgment (33.3 GB), Lost Judgment (56.8 GB)

In testing, Judgment appears to be based on the PS5 version of the game, rather than the PS4 version. It includes some of the graphical tweaks present for the remaster.

As I don’t have a 4K monitor, I ran both games at 1080p (1920 x 1080 resolution). On my machine it ran at a locked 60 fps according to the GeForce Experience’s built-in framerate counter. Lost Judgment did the same. I didn’t encounter any performance dips while running in Borderless mode, either.

Both games support graphical settings tweaks, including for resolution, anti-aliasing, shadow, texture, and geometry quality, reflections, motion blur, screen space ambient occlusion (SSAO), volumetric fog,  and even render scale (where you can customize the actual rendering resolution of the game to improve performance or quality). The games support AMD FidelityFX features, like Super Resolution and Sharpness, but I couldn’t test those as I have an Nvidia GPU. Monitor options also support higher framerates on 120hz monitors.

Do I need a gamepad to play Judgment on PC?

Though the opening screen has a cheeky “Real Detectives Use A Gamepad” message on it, both Judgment and Lost Judgment on PC support mouse-and-keyboard controls, and allow you to rebind keys. They also support various gamepads, including a wired PS5 DualSense, an Xbox One Gamepad, and a wired Dualshock4. In a nice touch that I don’t see often enough, the prompts changed seamlessly from keyboard, to PlayStation buttons, to Xbox buttons in real time as I switched controllers and inputs. Useful if you like to multitask.

That said, I still don’t recommend going full keyboard-mouse if you’re able to use a gamepad. The game and animations are tuned for gamepad use, so while moving on keyboard with the mouse controlling the camera, movement felt sluggish and delayed, while the camera jittered every time my hand moved even slightly. It was enough to trigger some mild motion sickness during a fight.

“Real Detectives”, indeed.

Judgment and Lost Judgment are available on PC via Steam. They’re also available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.