Sega was the original publisher and developer of the first two Shenmue titles.
#Shenmue 3 2016 full#
Although backers will receive a physical copy of the game on PC or PlayStation 4, gaming news site VG247 was informed by Suzuki’s company Ys Net that a full retail release is not yet certain. Will a physical copy of Shenmue III be sold in shops? Whether or not it is will no doubt depend on how well the game performs. Whatever the case, it seems unlikely that Suzuki wants this to be the close of the series. It’s not clear though, at which point in the over-arching story that Shenmue III will end, and whether further manga will be commissioned to fill in any gaps. There he meets the mysterious Ling Shenhua, a girl he has dreamed about in the past.
It is a direct sequel to Shenmue II, following on from the end of the game with Ryo travelling to the town of Guilin in China to track down his father’s killer. If at all possible, I would still like to realise the full story of 11 chapters.” So where does Shenmue fit in with the other two games?Ĭhapters 1-5 are covered by the original Shenmue and Shenmue II, as well as a manga series, Shenmue: Side Story, which means Shenmue III begins at chapter six. Over the past 14 years I originally planned for there to be four or five games to the series. During an AMA session on Reddit, Suzuki claimed: “There are a total of 11 chapters that make up the whole story. Is this the final part in the Shenmue story? A highly detailed, handmade environment may well prove more in keeping with the Shenmue experience – indeed Suzuki himself has stated: “For the next game, I’m going to go much deeper.” It’s possible the aim is a more detailed world with richer characterisation and not necessarily a larger one. There’s disagreement among the Shenmue community whether this would be a good idea, however. If further financial investment is later confirmed, it’s possible that this will be funnelled into world development. So does that mean the open-world dream is dead? Not necessarily. However, the final figure falls $4m short of that. Suzuki has previously stated that, if the game funding reached $10m, the development team would be able to create a truly open world environment, which caused excitement in the Shenmue community. While the first two titles allowed players a lot of explorative freedom, they weren’t strictly open-world in the modern sense – you couldn’t visit any area of the map at any time as you can in, say, the Grand Theft Auto titles. It could be that the corporate investment will be scaled to match the crowdfunded total – it is certainly not unusual for a developer to launch a Kickstarter that acts as a test for public interest and a signpost to potential investors. Suzuki took to the Kickstarter site in June to clarify that none of these companies will receive money from the Kickstarter funds, but the details remain ambiguous. It is not clear yet how much these two, or any further third-party investors, will add to the pool.
Sony announced at E3 that it will be helping to fund at least the PlayStation 4 portion of the game’s development the project also has another corporate backer, Shibuya Productions.
So is this second sequel going to be made for a fraction of that cost? No. The title was hugely ambitious, allowing players extraordinary freedom within its 1980s-themed urban environment it is considered an important forerunner of the open-world genre. Released back in 1999, the original Shenmue was one of the most expensive games ever made, with a reported development budget of around $50m. The company has been busy building the development team over the last few months, recruiting several more Shenmue veterans, including original character designer Kenji Miyawaki and voice actors Corey Marshall and Masaya Matsukaze who voiced lead character Ryo in the previous two instalments. It’s not a huge legacy, but then, the chief executive is Takeshi Hirai, one of the lead coders on the original Shenmue back in 1999. While Yu Suzuki is creative director on the project, the game is being developed by Shinjuku-based studio Neilo, previously responsible for the offbeat PlayStation rhythm action-based role-playing game Orgarhythm. But there are still a few questions hanging over the project.
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