This year has been incredible for games, and indie games in particular have stolen the spotlight in 2025. The Game of the Year nominees were made up of as many indies as there were AAA games, including Hades 2, Hollow Knight: Silksong, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which ended up taking home the GOTY win. That list doesn’t even include some fantastic indies that weren’t nominated, like Blue Prince, Dispatch, and this title that may have flown under many players’ radars.
Blue Prince still ended up being nominated for Best Independent Game, and both it and Dispatch were nominated for Best Debut Indie, but Promise Mascot Agency was left out of the show altogether. Despite carrying the DNA of games like Dispatch and the Like a Dragon series, Promise Mascot Agency hasn’t seemed to reach the same level of acclaim as other big indie games in 2025. It’s a shame, since Promise Mascot Agency is a strange little game that is hard to describe without having experienced it first hand, but players can pick up the game during the Steam Winter Sale at a discount right now and see for themselves why it deserves to be in the same circles as Dispatch, Expedition 33, Blue Prince, and 2025’s other top indies.
Promise Mascot Agency is an Underrated Gem That Shouldn’t Be Overlooked in 2025
Promise Mascot Agency follows the story of Michi, a yakuza hitman known as The Janitor, who is forced to fake his death and take on work at his family’s failing mascot agency in order to repay his debt after a job gone wrong. The twist is that, in the world of Promise Mascot Agency, mascots are not people in costumes, but actual living creatures, almost like Pokemon who exist to help promote businesses. To make matters worse, the town of Kaso-Machi, where the game takes place, is said to curse all male yakuza who travel there, meaning Michi’s task of revitalizing this failing agency and the small Kyushu town surrounding it could come at the cost of his life.
Promise Mascot Agency is Like a Weird Dispatch and Yakuza Love Child
Gameplay-wise, the best way to describe Promise Mascot Agency is like a crossover of the Like a Dragon series with Dispatch. It features an open-world map that Michi can drive around in his beaten-up truck, taking on jobs for the local businesses. To complete these jobs, players will need to recruit mascots from around the town to send out when a client calls in. Like Dispatch, the success or failure of these jobs depends on the stats of a mascot, which are affected by the mascot’s energy level and mascot items.
There is also another layer to sending mascots out on jobs, and that is the Mascot Support Hero system. Sometimes, mascots will encounter a problem while out on the job that requires players to engage in yet another mechanic where they must “defeat” the problem using Mascot Support Hero cards in a Slay the Spire-esque card battler mini-game. Players can obtain more Mascot Support Hero cards by talking to NPCs, purchasing them from certain vendors, or just finding them around the map.
Now is the Perfect Time to Check Out Promise Mascot Agency
These features may sound like a lot to deal with, but the layers of open-world exploration, mascot and job management, and card collecting and battling are actually very well-balanced to the point where they don’t feel overwhelming or cluttered. If this seems interesting, there’s never been a better time to try out Promise Mascot Agency. The game is currently on sale for 30% off during the Steam Winter Sale, so players can pick it up before the sale ends on January 5. It also has the same discount on Xbox and the Nintendo eShop, so players can snag it on the platform of their choice for a bizarre yet oddly charming and cozy game this holiday season.
- Released
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April 10, 2025
- Developer(s)
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Kaizen Game Works
- Publisher(s)
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Kaizen Game Works
