Shenmue III is finally coming, well not until 2019 that is. When Shenmue creator and former Sega developer Yu Suzuki appeared on stage in 2015 at the Sony E3 Press Conference to announce he was launching a Kickstarter to make Shenmue 3, fans who may have given hope on ever seeing a third game in the series didn’t waste a chance in making this dream become a reality by raising $6.3 million. Sure that’s a lot of money but in game development that might not exactly be enough and luckily Deep Silver (which is a subsidiary of THQ Nordic) stepped in to help with publishing and development.
“Deep Silver today announced that its upcoming release Shenmue III has been moved and will now release in 2019,” explained THQ Nordic. “The extra time will be used to polish the quality of the game even further to the high standards it deserves and release the product in the best possible time frame.”
Also shown was the pre-alpha trailer with updated visuals you can watch below:
Originally set to release in December 2017, well it’s not a huge surprise to see a Kickstarter funded game be delayed. It’s better to give the developer more time to release a great game at the start rather than something with plenty of issues that has to be fixed later or if ever. With Sega set to release a Shenmue HD Collection later this year, it doesn’t hurt as bad.
What do you think of the more polished visuals? Do you like the original or the new look?
You can also watch the full THQ Nordic Financial Presentation here.