What you need to know about Shenmue III, including latest news, release date, trailers, and much more!
Shenmue III Latest News
Ys Net has released three brand new screenshots from Shenmue III, which has just opened PC pre-orders. You can pre-order here.
Check out the screenshots:
"Main game scenarios are nearing completion, motion capture tests are well under way, and voicing tests with the cast have begun," Ys Net said in a Kickstarter update.Ys Net is also working on other elements, such as mini games, events, and battles.
"I have been completely absorbed in development [of] Shenmue IIIrecently, and often stay at the studio throughout the night to make it the best game possible. My life has become Shenmue both day and night, and I'm happy," said creator Yu Suzuki about developing this highly-anticipated sequel.
Shenmue III Release Date
Shenmue III is set to release in December 2017. It will arrive for the PlayStation 4 and PC.
Shenmue III Trailer
Yu Suzuki's team at Ys Net shared a brief yet atmospheric taste of what it could look like:
Here's the reveal trailer that was shown at E3 2015:
Shenmue III Details
The Shenmue III announcement was one of the big surprises of E3 2015, leading to an initial clamor of support which saw its Kickstarter campaign well over $2m within hours of launch.
Shenmue III's $6.3m total eclipsed the previous record holder, Blood Stained: Ritual of the Night, which raised $5.5m just a few weeks ago. It's undoubtedly good news for fans of the earlier Shenmue games, and a sign of how much demand there is for a sequel among the sandbox series' cult following. But it's also some distance from the (perhaps over-ambitious) target Suzuki once set. He recently said he needed to raise $10m to make Shenmue III "a much larger, completely open world" video game.
You may recall that the first Shenmue, first released in Japan in 1999, cost a reported $70m - a staggering sum for the time, and still a significant budget for a piece of entertainment even in 2015. Shenmue III will, barring some hefty private investment added at a later date, have less than 10 percent of that budget to play with - though its designers at Ys Net will at least be able to save money by using an off-the-peg engine (Unreal Engine 4) and recycled assets from earlier entries in the series.
At any rate, the success of the Kickstarter campaign means that the once-dormant Shenmue franchise has a new lease of life. We'll just have to wait and see how Yu Suzuki can reintroduce the series to a new generation of consoles and potential fans.
