Shenmue III (シェンムーIII) is the third installment of the Shenmue series and the sequel to Shenmue II. It will resume at Chapter 6 and continuing to an unknown later chapter of the 16 chapter saga.
It will be released for PC and PlayStation 4. Both versions will be both physical and digital downloadable. It is being developed by YS Net ("Yu Suzuki Net"), Yu Suzuki's development studio, and published by Deep Silver. It is being published by Deep Silver instead of Sega; Sega licensed the Shenmue IP to Deep Silver.
Plot
Set in 1987, Ryo Hazuki has made his way to China in search of his father's killer, Lan Di. There he meets a new travelling companion, Shenhua Ling, and learns of a legend from her village that has foretold their path together.
The story continues as Ryo and Shenhua start off on a new journey that will take them farther into enemy territory, deeper into mystery, and ever closer to their destiny. Lan Di will return, with a new antagonist Niao Sun.
Will the mystery of the mirrors be revealed? How is Ryo's father connected to all of this? Will Ryo track down the Chi You Men cartel and face Lan Di in a final showdown?
Shenmue III begins in Bailu Village in Guilin. The second area, Choubu, is "a riverside village with lots of shops, souvenir stores, hotels and temples", and the third area, Baisha, will feature a "siege game reminiscent of the Warring Kingdoms.
Gameplay
Shenmue III is an adventure game featuring exploring China and occasional combat. Shenhua will follow Ryo.
Ryo can make phone calls to Japan to catch up with the lives of characters from previous games.
Development
Shenmue III was originally planned to be developed for the Dreamcast but due to the dwindling sales of the console and its games and the huge losses Sega incurred between 1998 and 2001 (at 2001 losses hit an all-time low of approximately 51,750,000,000 Yen) it did not seem financially viable for Sega to develop a sequel to a game that cost $70,000,000 for a console that was no longer profitable.
However, of the $70,000,000 budget the developer had spent the budget on all the research and resources necessary to create all the further installments of the Shenmue saga, in fact the Shenmue story was already finished and planned out, the research for all further titles is complete, all the character design is complete and there are still many hundreds of gigabytes of uncompressed textures ready to be ported for development on any console the developer would be creating Shenmue III for.
Kickstarter
Playstation E3 2015 Moment Shenmue 3 PS4
Sony E3 announcement.
At E3 2015 at Sony's press conference, series creator Yu Suzuki announced that Shenmue III will be crowdfunded.
Through a Kickstarter campaign, Shenmue III subsequently hit its initial $2 million (USD) goal within a mere 8 hours, becoming the fastest-funded video game in Kickstarter history. The stretch goals extended up to $11 million.[1] The Kickstarter finished at $6.33 million. Shenmue III became the most funded video game on Kickstarter with 69,320 people helping to bring back the Shenmue series back to life.
Production
The game will be developed using Unreal Engine 4 for both PC and PlayStation 4. Development can be followed at its Kickstarter blog. Its release date was set for December 2017, although this was delayed to the second half of 2018.
Reception
Trivia
Picture 1: Old Man: "You say you know Master Lishao Tao?"
Picture 2: Old Man: "If you remember, Rakousei was attacked by an enemy/group. I think this must be the reason"
Picture 3: Ryo: "Is - this place here where you keep things of Rakousei?"
To date as of 2014 no information on who Rakousei is. The Old Man has been founded in the Shenmue 2x files and appears as a VMU icon when you pop in the Dreamcast Shenmue 2 first disc in. He appears under the name "OSY".
References
External links
Gallery
Concept
