As the title states, I have recently gained information retaining to the long anticipated sequel to Yakuza Like a Dragon, Yakuza 8. This information was given to me by an Uncle who was contacted by his former roommate, who was contacted by his current roommate, who was contacted by their grandfather, who was contacted by a co-worker who works at Nintendo. That co-worker was contacted by an another employee who works at Nintendo Japan, who bullies a Sega employee during lunchtime. After stealing his hard drive, he was able to send it over to America for me to play. I played through every mission and substory I could and was able to obtain some images as well.
My thoughts on the current state of the game are as follows:

STORY

Ichiban explains that Kiryu should stop being such a coomer while Majima does the Hustle in excitement.
The story begins with Ichiban and the gang fighting some unknown assailant and his gang. Ichiban and the party seem to be losing, but then Ichiban gives an inspiring speech, giving his friends the strength to fight through the pain and prepare the winning blow. It's pretty cool. Then Kiryu casually walks in, beats the shit out of the thugs and congratulates Ichiban for making it that far. Kiryu is also heavily disheveled during this cutscene. Ichiban and his party are understandably upset and state that he's been doing this for the last 3 times any threat to Kamurocho or Isezaki Ijincho has appeared, and that they cannot grow in strength if he keeps hand holding them. Kiryu ignores them. Ichiban goes to New Serena to drown his sorrows before deciding to contact the remnants of the Tojo Clan. Ichiban, Namba, Joon-Gi Han, Akiyama, Daigo, Majima, Saejima, Date, Bob Utsunomiya, and Shin Amon all agree on a plan of kidnapping Kiryu, and smuggling him to America so he can hook up with Sayama and stop being depressed. When Kiryu enters New Serena again, this time somewhat cleaner then before, a cutscene plays (Image above.) The whole team then beats Kiryu into unconsciousness. After successfully managing to smuggle a whole man through airport security, plus convincing immigration that they should let 6-7 ex-criminals travel together out of the country, they arrive in America. Date tracks Sayama down and discovers her location in Las Vegas. However, when they arrive they discover that she died of diabetes 2 years ago, but Kiryu discovers that American porn is uncensored and is o.k. with it. The rest of the game is just substories as the group decides they might as well treat it as a vacation and wander around Vegas for substories. There are approximately 400 substories with more on the way so rip Yakuza completionists.

GAMEPLAY

The Yakuza devs decided to go in a new direction yet again, as the game is a first person cooperative horde shooter. An interesting jump to say the least, perhaps in order to accommodate American Culture. One unique mechanic that interested me was the reloading mechanic. Everytime you reload your weapon, you have to play a game of Mahjong to complete the animation. There are some anti-frustration features to counteract this, as pressing the reload button will cause your current character to throw a grenade before playing Mahjong. Parties come back, and with them the chance of min-maxing. I found that the best team was Kiryu, Ichiban, Daigo, and Bob.
Image of the reloading mechanic in action. (Note I have no idea how to play Mahjong.)

MUSIC

It's good, like it always is. Although Receive and Suck You is a strange name for a battle theme.

SUBSTORIES AND ENTERTAINMENT

Be honest, this is what you're really here for. There is a lot of nifty things to do in Vegas. Ride rollercoasters without screaming like a girl. Play VR games. Watch American movies. Walk around the strip and look at stuff.
As said before, there are many substories. It would be almost impossible to list them all, and some of them are related to certain characters, plus more may be added in the future. Here are simply my favorite from each character:
Kiryu - Kiryu creates a e621 account thinking that it's just a cool website for people who like dragons.
Ichiban - Ichiban discovers Dragonquest VR and spends a whole day playing before deciding to play something else after burning his retinas.
Namba - Namba discovers heroin.
Joon-Gi Han - Joon-Gi Han uses the 2nd Amendment to its maximum in order to defend himself from K-Pop fans.
Akiyama - Akiyama stubs his toe and is forced to close Sky Finance to pay the medical bills.
Daigo - I forgot Daigo existed.
Saejima - Saejima causes a school-shooting.
Majima - Majima stops a school-shooting.
Date - Date is arrested for police brutality, but is released after the court finds him not guilty because he is not an American police officer.
Bob Utsunomiya - Bob watches Joker, and then runs for U.S President. He almost wins too, until he is forced out because he isn't a naturalized citizen.
Shin Amon - Amon beats a famous celebrity to death. (You get to choose who.)
Ichiban plays with a VR headset, highlighting many of the new entertainment options in Yakuza 8.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

I believe that with time in the oven, and with a few minor tweaks to gameplay, Yakuza 8 could still be better then anything Sonic Team has released recently. Overall, I give this game a 4/20, but I might increase the score if these fixes are developed and if it wasn't obvious already APRIL FOOLS.