Shenmue 3 was a strange game in hindsight. While this author was rather enamoured with its commitment to the legendary series’ plodding pacing, there’s no doubt that it failed to meaningfully move the franchise’s narrative forward – a bizarre decision, considering just how long we waited to play the threequel.
There was always hope, of course, that the revival would do just well enough to demand a sequel, and chatter online suggests it may be getting the go-ahead. It’s really loose, wishful stuff, but it all stems from creator Yu Suzuki’s recent appearance at publisher 110 Industries’ Tokyo Game Show press conference.
While this company is unlikely to be a household name to many of you, it’s behind the upcoming Wanted: Dead, a hyper-violent character action title helmed by Ninja Gaiden veteran Hiroaki Matsui. Asked exactly why Suzuki has been keeping company with the organisation, a spokesperson effectively said “guess”.
This prompted an article by Game Rant, which was shared by famous fansite Shenmue Dojo. The fansite said: “While it’s only a rumour, this is still appropriate.” To which a representative for 110 Industries spotted the post and responded, “No comment.” So, there’s basically nothing to go on at this stage, then, but curious nonetheless.
Ys Net does have much of the engine built and gameplay systems in place to create another Shenmue game now, it all just depends on whether it’s commercially viable. Shenmue 3 did extremely well on Kickstarter but was a bit of a disaster at retail, however a successful Crunchyroll adaptation has recently raised the profile of the property. Obviously, if it does happen, we’ll be first in line.
[source instagram.com, via gamerant.com, twitter.com]
Comments 40
I sincerely hope that the 4th is made. In fact... I hope that Suzuki gets the funds and proper dev resources to simply finish the series. Just get it done Suzuki. None of us are getting any younger... including yourself. The grand scheme of 5-7 games just isn't viable for the niche series. Yes... there's a decent fan base of us at the dojo but we're not enough to fully fund more games... it's time to finish.
I have a vision of myself trundling down to the shops on my mobility scooter to buy the seventh game
In this entry, at last Ryo will successfully cough in Lan Di's general direction. Look forward to the first scratch in Shenmue 5.
@jcboyer515 I'm curious if you actually played the third? It actually did a great job of feeling like a Dreamcast game made 18 years later. The only down sides to it were the addition of stamina and that the story didn't move forward as much as many were hoping.
This coming from a backer that put his money where his mouth is.
Oh please let it happen!!!! Shenmue 4, Shenmue 5, Shenmue 6... My favourite games of all time are Shenmue 1+2 (hence my profile pic)
@Uncharted2007 I also backed Shenmue 3 and really enjoyed it. I don't want a reinvigorated Shenmue 4, I want another time-bubble game like the third installment. A few tweaks for the fourth one and it should/could be really good.
Shenmue is interesting in that it's possibly the most boring game I've ever played, but at the same time was one I couldn't put down.
@jcboyer515 I can see where you're coming from but when you know the history of the series the fact that the third was made is actually a really big deal. Dev costs of the originals were around $80 million back in the late 90's. At the time that was the most expensive game ever made. Sega CEOs blamed it for their failing costs when it was actually their horrible management skills and making bad calls like 32X, Sega CD (which was ahead of its time), Neptune, bad marketing for Saturn, etc. I can almost guarantee that Shenmue 3 didn't have an $80 million budget.
Please make this happen and please let 4 be the end. Dudes vision is great and all but I will truly be dead before it ends if he wants to make so many more installments. I looooved 3. And it's NOT for everyone. But I'd you grew up on 1 and 2 and how mind boggling they were for their time it was easy to love 3.
@Uncharted2007 and 80M was worth even more back then too.
Do people even care? Shenmue 3 was utter crap...
This is like reunion of Pink Floyd.....will it work again? Most probably not....! I totally agree with @BoldAndBrash
@Uncharted2007 I played it and couldn't finish it. The first few hours in the second location, wandering around, investigating was great. Took me right back to my childhood. Perfect Shenmue. Hitting story wall enemies that rendered all training and skill worthless made me quit in annoyance. Wasn't too fussed about the story not moving forward as it never really did in the other games. I will probably play a fourth, just because of how much I like the first two, but I hope they take a different route with it design-wise.
@eM1x029 leave pink floyd out of it you heretic..oh and i love the burzum pic..
@RogerRoger I'll have to resist the urge to race my fellow elderly Shenmue fans to the shop
@Northern_munkey don't get me wrong....I adore PF. I was raised with their music....but can they make music again, especially live ...? I doubt it. The same with Count Grishnak (BRZM). Thanks for the appreciation of the pic.
@eM1x029 i was only joking about the floyd..yes i agree i doubt they will ever perform live again or release a new album..as far as i can recall burzum have never performed live and grisnach only ever played with mayhem a handful of times..i really like his music but i dont share his same thoughts or political leanings...👍
I did find 3 insulting in that it didn't really advance the story. So let me get this straight, he wants to tell a story that spans 5 or more games but spent an entire game that was funded by the entire human population not continuing said story 😑
Maybe I should play the trilogy and see what this weird game is about!
@Uncharted2007 I'd say that the main problem with Shenmue 3 is that it achieved what it set out to do, and that was as you say to be a Dreamcast game. It was a game built for the Kickstarter backers and not for the general market. It was annoying that they didn't move the story on so much and there was an opportunity to make a modern game that still had the same essence of the originals. We can still root through drawers, but do we really need to press a button to open a drawer press the button again to zoom in and again to open a box in the draw. Just stuff like that where it was tedious for no purpose. It could still be a sim without it feeling more tedious than real life!
I have to say that I mostly enjoyed 3 and I'm glad I played it, but clearly it was a bad game. I hope that 4 comes, but with proper funding that is not a kickstarter.
@jcboyer515 I can agree on that point. The game definitely didn't sell as well as anyone hoped.
@Apfelschteiner I also hope that any new game isn't crowdfunded. It needs a proper development budget.
I recently got the third game on PC and am gonna make some time to go back through 1 and 2 and then 3. As for a 4 I'd like Sega to take it back in house and get the Yakuza/Judgement teams to work on the next entry
I love Shenmue but unless a new entry meaningfully updates the gameplay I just don't know. I replayed 1 and 2 in preparation for 3 and when I sat down with 3 I was still appalled at how bad it felt to play. Keep the slow narrative and curious storytelling choices, just modernize the controls a bit, please.
I still have my Dreamcast copies of 1 and 2 which I thought were great at the time. After so many years of anticipation I have to admit I found Shenmue 3, disappointing. I bought it at launch and I'm yet to finish the game. I've tried to get back to the game several times, but the loss of the excellent Virtua Fighter style combat, and the fact running drains your health, always see me just stop playing.
@RudeAnimat0r @carlos82 People talk about it being impossible to make a good modern Shenmue game like they talk about it being impossible to have a good videogame movie adaptation. It really doesn't seem so much of a stretch to make a Yakuza game reskinned as Shenmue. The main problem with Shenmue is the way they made them. They were just too expensive for Sega and they didn't sell well because the Dreamcast didn't sell well. It is the weirdest series ever. The first game was a Dreamcast exclusive, the second game was an Xbox exclusive, and the third game was a PlayStation exclusive.
Anyway, there is definitely a great game in there in the right hands. Ryu ga gotoku studio can definitely do it. I'd love to see them do something that is not set in one or two big cities. I really loved the vibe of Onomichi in Yakuza 6. I really like the idea of them making a narrative road trip game like the last of us, but set in Japan in a real-world context.
@Apfelschteiner I definitely think it's possible to make a modernized Shenmue game. Most of the game's charm is in the characters, setting and weird game systems. My issue with 3 is it plays like an early 3D game still. It's also paced in the most obnoxious way imaginable. These "features" aren't charming anymore. I want a Shenmue game with a camera that isn't awful! I also want just basic character movement to not feel like walking in quicksand!
I actually wouldn't want Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio to make it. I loved the early Yakuza games but that series is also stuck in the past to me. Plus they've just buried that series in the ground. There have been like 15 games since it debuted on PS2, counting remakes and side story games.
@RudeAnimat0r Do you think that Yu Suzuki is an asset or a liability? I'm wondering if it would be better to keep him as a consultant only and not the director of the game, because I wonder if he would ever agree to fixing basic issues with gameplay.
@Apfelschteiner You know it's an interesting thought experiment. I thought he made some comments about how a potential Shenmue 4 might evolve since 3 was designed for people's previous expectations. Suzuki is definitely the heart and soul of Shenmue, but I think the series could be a lot better and more accessible if there was a different director in place. It kind of breaks my heart to say that, but the times have definitely left some of the old legends in the dust.
Good. I couldn't care less about the haters. Let's see Shemue to the end!
I still need to play a Shenmue game. I have the HD collection for 1 and 2 sitting on my shelf for quite a few years. I just never got around to playing it.
Blasphemous I know.
Kickstarted the game on day one, only play the game about 2-3 hours before uninstalled it on ps4 😅
Unlike shenmue 1-2 that feels like next-gen on my dreamcast back then, shenmue 3 feels kind of cheap, and it's kind of rude that the story isn't finished after fans waiting for nearly 20 years.
I'm truly happy for the fans if this turns out to be real, but I will be sticking to the anime...
@jcboyer515 Really hope another Shenmue comes to fruition. I don't expect people who haven't played the originals back when they released to understand what makes these games so special, but those games were unnoticed trailblazers for their time.
Digital Foundry made fantastic retrospectives to add some insight, especially for those just seeing the game now and branding it as crap and wishing it to fail (an attitude towards a niche game I just don't understand)
https://youtu.be/c0blSBgpRUg
I'm ready for the next Kickstarter. I just hope part 4 will finish the story and remove/adjust the stamina bar. Had to stuff Ryo full of garlic for him to survive a day 😂
The anime does a fine job conveying the story for those who don't want to bother with the archaic gameplay. I still appreciate some parts of exploration and battle, just not the quick time events and no time skipping.
Good thing that Shenmue 3 was free on EGS so I could try it for myself.... and discover that I hated it.
For anyone who hasn't tried it, it plays pretty much like a Yakuza game in slow motion that has all fun drained out of it.
@tameshiyaku I didn't play Shenmue when it came out, but I was aware of it and wanted to play it back then. When it became convenient for me to play it, I got the remaster on PS4. I was able to get past the frustration of the controls etc. to find an incredible game in there for the first one and a decent sequel. I'm disappointed that Sega gave up on the remake of the original, because that would have been a chance to make a great game in its time a great game in our time.
I really hope that 4 does not get Kickstarted because that is a terrible way to make a game. It means that the game has to be made for the very hardcore.
The anime is decent, but they really rushed the Japan section and they made some annoying changes to move the story along. I think they even left out the iconic scene of Ryo riding the motorbike down the expressway in the snow.
I don't know where the anime is going to end. I doubt they would continue the story past 3, and there isn't that much material in 3 to make many episodes.
The same team should totally make a Yakuza anime, but I'd want them to not rush too much and miss important story beats.
Shenmue 2 on Xbox was amazing. I played the heck out of it. Never played 1 on Dreamcast; I watched the DVD story summary lol.
But I don’t think I could ever return to it. It was the right game for the right time. But the mechanics today just seem… well extremely dated.
I’d rather keep my fond memories. It’s why I never bothered to play 3. I watched the story cinematics on YouTube instead.
@Apfelschteiner feel the same way about the anime. Moved along to fast in some moments and lacks the more sombre moments of the game.
I've been rambling for ages how Yakuza would be a perfect fit for an anime Adaptation, but I'd rather have it from a studio with a distinct style. I could imagine it be done well by the studio behind JoJo's bizarre adventure, production ig or madhouse studios.
@tameshiyaku I guess the logical move would be to use the same animation studio that made Shenmue. I'd prefer something that isn't too stylized, so I'd be happy with the same style. Have you read the web manga put out by Sega? I quite like the style there. I'm not particularly knowledgable about anime, but I am very quick to disregard anything that I don't like the art style for. I love Japanese stuff, but I hate the weebs and the really weebie stuff. Maybe 80% of anime is utter trash, just like western animation.
@Apfelschteiner yup, mostly tropy school kid trash, but occasionally something good.
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