Shenmue III

User Summary

Shenmue III was formally a canceled game for the Dreamcast created by Sega. Various unconfirmed reasons for its delay include budget issues, poor sales of Shenmue II, and creative differences between Yu Suzuki and the more conservative management Sega installed. Shenmue III has been announced and cancelled at least twice. It was originally set to contain Shenmue I and II.

With a successful KickStarter in 2015, Shenmue 3 has started development again and is partially funded by Sony. Shenmue 3 has been created for the PC and PlayStation 4 and built in Unreal 4. It will will have familiar elements from its predecessors and new fight mechanics to achieve a new level of interactive storytelling. The story continues as Ryo and Shenhua travel farther into enemy territory.

Steam version is set to be available in November 2020, but the game is available on other platforms as well as on Epic Games for Windows.

Trivia:

• The game was originally planned to be made by Sega Corporation for the Dreamcast and was to come with Shenmue I and II. Over the years many have speculated that the game may never see the light of day. Various unconfirmed reasons for its delay include budget issues, poor sales of Shenmue II, and creative differences between Yu Suzuki and the more conservative management Sega installed after restructuring.
• Shenmue III had been announced for development and cancelled at least twice. In August 2005, Kikizo.com stated that Shenmue III would be a compilation of the first and second installments plus the final chapters.
• The entire storyline of the Shenmue saga is already finished, yet the final chapters (which would have made up its sequels) never went into production.
• Yu Suzuki’s KickStarter for Shenmue III managed to shut down KickStarter temporarily due to the traffic it brought. The project asked for $2 million and managed to reach its goal in less than 9 hours. It’s become Kickstarter’s fastest project to reach $1 million and $2 million.
• The game reached $1 million in 1 hour and 42 minutes, braking the Guinness World Record for the fastest video game supported by a crowdfunding platform. The previous record holder, Torment: Tides of Numeara, took 5 hours.