The 18-Year Wait for Shenmue III Is Finally Over

Yu Suzuki has been waiting for this day for over a decade. While his games, Shenmue and Shenmue II, have maintained a steady, loyal fanbase since Shenmue II’s release in 2001, securing the funds to develop Shenmue III was a challenge.

But that never stopped Shenmue fans from clamoring for more. “The wishful voices of the fans for the next Shenmue have been calling out year after year,” Suzuki said. “They said it didn’t matter if it took the form of a novel or a comic or whatever as long as they could hear what happens with the story.”

Inspired by his passionate fanbase, Suzuki searched relentlessly for a way to make Shenmue III a reality. “I found out about Kickstarter, and I made up my mind to make a new Shenmue with what funding it could get,” Suzuki said. His Kickstarter was so successful that it was honored by the Guinness World Records for reaching $1 million in one hour and 44 minutes. “It was great that in the end Shenmue III became a full-scale game,” Suzuki said.

Finally, today, in 2019, twenty years after the release of the first Shenmue, Shenmue III is available for fans to play. But what is it about the series that struck such a resonant chord?

The answer can be traced to Shenmue’s legacy. The first Shenmue was a revolutionary game for its time, containing a host of features that were either unconventional or had never been seen before in a video game. 

Both Shenmue games follow a teenage martial artist named Ryo Hazuki as he searches for his father’s killer. As a martial artist, Ryo does a lot of fighting; the game’s combat sequences borrow heavily from the Virtua Fighter engine and encourage players to learn combos and upgrade them. 

Yet Shenmue and Shenmue II are especially remarkable for the spaces in between the action and storytelling. Their open worlds are full of recreational activities, from billiards to darts to arm-wrestling to duck racing. There are even in-game arcades that house virtual, playable arcade cabinets like Space Harrier and Hang On.

Furthermore, every in-game element is tuned to an internal clock. Characters, businesses, and even buses are bound to regular routines that reflect the time of day in-game. When Ryo finds employment operating a forklift, he’s expected to treat it like an actual job — show up on time, take a lunch break, and leave when the shift’s over. As a result, gameplay obtains a leisurely pace, and the player is left to enjoy themselves however they see fit.

This was a revelation in 1999, and its importance continues to resonate today. Never mind that Shenmue introduced “quick-time events” to in-game cinematics, or maintained persistent worlds full of life, or included games-within-games that uploaded high scores to an online leaderboard; Shenmue was mostly revolutionary for its celebration of the mundane.

“Modern society has become one of stimulation, and in that vein, it is now mainstream for games to be fast-paced and high-impact in presentation to elicit emotion,” Suzuki said. “With increasing numbers of games like this, I’d like to believe games like Shenmue — slower-paced games — can be a reaction to that and would help people enjoy a better peace of mind.”

Shenmue III is no different. The game’s story picks up right where Shenmue II left off, with Ryo traveling to the mountains of Guilin in China in pursuit of answers. The game still revolves around the everyday; Ryo can still do mundane chores like chopping wood to earn pocket change for mundane activities like collecting toy capsules from a vending machine. The most stark difference between Shenmue III and its predecessors is that the game was developed using Unreal Engine 4, meaning a much more visually detailed graphical experience.

But Suzuki is also willing to channel the past. With Shenmue III, his goal is to inspire “nostalgia, a warming of the heart, and feeling like you’ve returned from a solitary journey,” whether you’ve played Shenmue III or not.

If you haven’t, Suzuki is certain that new players will still find the game accessible; an opening cinematic acquaints (or re-acquaints) the player with the narrative of the previous two titles. In fact, Suzuki has these words of advice for new players: “Don’t rush to play, take your time, and you’ll find much to discover. And when you’ve finished playing, I hope that feeling of coming home after a solitary journey stays with you.”

Shenmue III is currently available on PC.