After five years on the market in physical form on PS4 and digitally on PS4 and PC, Shenmue III’s publishing rights are in new hands. Originally, Deep Silver had the rights to them, but after their successful work with Air Twister, Y’s Net and ININ Games are continuing their relationship with Shenmue III’s rightsbeing moved to ININ. This comes after the franchise’s 25th anniversary overall – factoring in the Japanese release of the original game on the Dreamcast. The third entry in the series was something that fans had hoped would happen, but wound up being probably the most controversial entry to date.
After five years on the market in physical form on PS4 and digitally on PS4 and PC, Shenmue III’s publishing rights are in new hands.
Shenmue I was a master-class in making a game world feel alive and real, while the sequel ramped up the pacing of the action at the expense of some of that finer-detail work with the world itself. Environments gained a lot of physical details, but not as many were able to be explored. The third game was aided by using Unreal Engine 4 and not its own engine to allow a blend of the best of both worlds, but was hurt by slower storytelling. In that sense, it very much reminded me of a game that was struggling to do the best of both of the first games' styles, but in a different time.
Personally, I enjoyed the first village being like the first game where you have this deeper dive into the world and the people in it while the closing chapter was like the second game with more action, but still having a fair amount of attention placed on the environment. As a progression of the greater story, however, Shenmue III fell a bit flat and the overall project felt hurt a bit by only being on PS4 and PC. An Xbox release for the third game would have been right in line with the second game being released on the original Xbox, but didn’t happen.
Savor the World
Shenmue III did get some non-story DLC, but it would be nice to see a continuation of the tale to get it finally told. One incredible thing with this announcement is that they brought up carrying the torch of the series into the future. They also brought up the story of Shenmue not being over and while that could just be in regard to the franchise itself not ending as a moneymaking venture, it does seem to indicate that there is hope for the tale continuing. We did have the Shenmue Anime attempt before it was cut short and time will tell if the future of the series includes new games or a new movie – perhaps a CG affair along the lines of Lupin III: The First.
Either way, having the series in new hands is a sign of hope when it felt like the franchise was stagnating before. It’s exciting to see what will happen, because while I wouldn’t expect much right away beyond the game still being available digitally, maybe we’ll see it expanded to an Xbox release as well. That would help the audience grow, as would something like a release of it on Apple Arcade. This would be the largest-scale game on that service beyond something like Fantasian and would enable many to enjoy the franchise for the first time.
