Shenmue III

Shenmue III is a 2019 action-adventure game developed by Ys Net and published by Deep Silver for the PlayStation 4 and Windows. Like the previous Shenmue games, it consists of open-world environments interspersed with brawler battles and quick time events, with a day-and-night system, variable weather effects, non-player characters with daily schedules, and various minigames. Players control the teenage martial artist Ryo Hazuki, who continues his search for his father's killer in the mountains of 1980s Guilin, China. The director, Yu Suzuki, conceived Shenmue as a saga spanning multiple games. Shenmue and Shenmue II were developed by Sega AM2 and published by Sega for the Dreamcast in 1999 and 2001. The original Shenmue was the most expensive video game ever developed at the time, though this development also covered some of Shenmue II and groundwork for future Shenmue games. The games attracted positive reviews and a cult following, but were commercial failures. At E3 2015, following years of speculation, Suzuki launched a Kickstarter campaign to crowdfund Shenmue III, with Sega having licensed Shenmue to Suzuki's company Ys Net. It became the fastest campaign to raise $2 million, in under seven hours, and ended the following month having raised over $6 million, making it the highest-funded video game in Kickstarter history at the time. Further funding came from Sony and Deep Silver and crowdfunding on other platforms. The development team was much smaller than that of previous Shenmue games, though key staff from the original team returned. Shenmue III was developed using Unreal Engine 4. Shenmue III was released on November 19, 2019, 18 years after Shenmue II. It received mixed reviews; some critics praised its faithfulness to the franchise, while others found it outdated. Retail sales were low, but excluded digital sales and copies sent to Kickstarter backers. The CEO of Deep Silver's parent company, Embracer Group, said Shenmue III had been "fine" financially. An enhanced version for newer platforms is scheduled for late 2026. Suzuki expressed his hope to develop Shenmue IV.