Shenmue III – it’s real, but it’s not finished

GameCentral speaks to the legendary creator of OutRun and After Burner about facial animation and making Shenmue III on a budget.

If Yu Suzuki was a Western developer he’d be one of the most famous people in the video games industry. His career has spanned decades, and from the mid-eighties onwards he helped create almost all of Sega’s most influential arcade titles, including Hang-On, Space Harrier, OutRun, After Burner, Virtua Racing, Virtua Fighter, and Daytona USA. But as the arcade scene started to die out he switched focus to a very different kind of game, and in 1999 released the seminal Shenmue for the Sega Dreamcast console.



Despite constant rumours of remakes, the original 2000 Dreamcast game is still the only version that exists. Although Shenmue II, from a couple of years later, is also available on the original Xbox. The games’ scarcity is frustrating on a number of levels, not least because it makes describing them extremely difficult for those that have never seen them in action. But they are in essence open world adventures, whose closet modern day equivalent is probably Sega’s own Yakuza series.

Shenmue has a similar mix of real world exploration and street fighting (Shenmue originally started life as a Virtua Fighter role-playing game), but a much more sedate pace in terms of storytelling. It is still ultimately a tale of revenge though, as laconic lead Ryu investigates the death of his father. It’s also a story that for over a decade has seemed like it would never have an ending, especially once Suzuki left Sega and started his own company.


But miracles can happen and in 2015 Shenmue III was announced as a PlayStation 4 and PC exclusive, funded by a record-breaking Kickstarter campaign. More recently Deep Silver was revealed as the game’s publisher and the first official teaser trailer was revealed.

Not only did we get to meet Suzuki himself at Gamescom last week, but we were also treated to an extended press-only version of the trailer. Although it was only a minute or too longer, with more footage of Ryu’s martial prowess and worryingly poor facial animation.

We’ve long been concerned that, despite the crowdfunding, the game just doesn’t have the budget to fulfil Suzuki’s vision. But we put this issue to the man himself and thankfully he seems entirely confident that the final game will not disappoint fans, no matter how long they’ve been waiting…

Formats: PlayStation 4 and PC

Publisher: Deep Silver

Developer: Neilo and Ys Net

Release Date: Second half 2018

GC: It’s great to see you here, and I must say it’s almost a surreal experience for me. I never expected to be doing what is essentially a normal press preview for Shenmue III. Suddenly it makes it all seem that much more real… I wonder if you feel the same?

YS: I am very happy to be here. Gamescom is a really big show and I almost wish I could be standing in front of a lot of people so that I could talk to fans and explain the game to them. I knew in advance that there were a lot of fans in Europe but to see how enthusiastic everyone is, it is very encouraging and drives me to push forward even more. It makes a big difference to meet real people, which has not really been possible, especially in Europe, up until this point.



So I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the fans and to say how I am very strongly encouraged by all their support. I gain a lot of energy from these people and I will utilise that encouragement when working on the future of the project.

GC: I always say it’s a great shame that we usually see so little of Japanese developers, especially one as venerable as yourself, when you’ve had so much influence on gamers and the industry in general.

YS: There are excuse for that, but yes.

GC: Well, it’s a long way to come.

YS: [laughs] I’m very happy to know there’s so many fans waiting for us. That’s really something.

GC: Existing fans obviously love the game, but what I wonder is how younger players react to this style of game. How closely are you sticking to the style of the originals?

YS: Shenmue has always been very unique, I think, and so there’s nothing else that’s very similar. But I do not think it’s a problem overall as what has changed in the modern games world is that people are now used to playing different types of games that may not be action-based and have a lot of story. Shenmue may still feel strange to them at first [laughs] but I hope that in itself will be attractive to many people, and that they will find it interesting for that reason.

The style of game will be very similar to the original, but we will of course be adding some new features as well. The style of control from the original game is one thing that will be updated, but that is natural given modern controllers and the advance of that type of technology.

Shenmue III – the faces need a bit of work

GC: So you haven’t felt the need to modernise or change the gameplay in any way?


YS: I don’t think it’s necessary to change the basics of the gameplay. If I change it too much the existing fans will be very upset. Although I am always making up new ideas and things to add to the game, which can be a problem for my team who are trying to implement these ideas. [laughs]

At the moment we are trying to keep it to 30% new and the keep the other 70% of the game similar to the original. But the design is constantly changing and I am always coming up with new concepts that we can try to add to the game if there is the opportunity.

GC: How much of your original plan for the series remains from the early 2000s? If the gameplay is largely the same, has the story altered at all?

YS: I wrote the original story of Shenmue back in around 2000, and that consisted of 11 chapters. But even with Shenmue II we had taken elements from chapters four, five, and six; while removing chapter three completely. So while the basic outline has always remained constant it has never been the case that we stick too rigidly to the initial plan.

When we started to work on Shenmue III I realised I needed to pick up some of the elements of the original games to please fans, but other elements have become changed or removed. I adapt the story to fit the modern era and to my own changing influences. But also I have to make sure that it is a good fit for Shenmue. So certain aspects of the story have remained constant but Shenmue III has become a new game over time.


So I guess, to answer your question, original elements directly exist but I’m converging and adjusting to make a modern game for today.

I’m always constantly adjusting the elements of Shenmue III to be the best. For example, now that we have the new partner Deep Silver I’ve been scaling up the game design of Shenmue III. So I changed a little bit about the gameplay itself and also took into account the new Unreal Engine that we are using.

GC: Can you go into detail about any of these new gameplay concepts? Are any of these ideas you had back in the 2000s that weren’t technologically possible at the time?

YS: It may not answer your question directly but, for example, there were things I could do 20 years ago that I did not think was the best way of solving a problem. But that attitude may have changed over time and now I think that this type of feature would be good for the new game.

But it is not just the progress of video games technology that has changed over the years. Over all this time I have been watching many movies as well, like over 800 movies or so in the last 15 years, and they also become an influence on the game and I take elements from them I think could be used to fit Shenmue III.

So I have broadened my experience in many areas that will impact the game. But of course we have to deal with different resources with Shenmue III. With the original there was a much bigger team and budget, so I must carefully select what goes into the new game.

Shenmue III – will fans be satisfied with the final game?

GC: And on that point, my major concern is that the original was for a long time the most expensive video game ever made. But even with the record Kickstarter support the budget for Shenmue III seems a lot smaller.

YS: As you know open world games cost a lot! [laughs] So it is challenging for me to deal with the budget issue. Even after we completed the Kickstarter project I have been looking for other partners to join us and as you know we have now partnered with Deep Silver. So I’m now comfortable in saying, ‘Don’t worry, I can make the whole game you imagined!’ Even if the sense of size cannot compare with the biggest open world games, that is impossible without a much bigger budget.

I believe the open world of Shenmue is very different from the other open world games that exist. Although Shenmue was the first open world title it is still very unique and so we can focus on other things that do not depend solely on money. So I think there is a lot of playable and very unique elements in the open world that mean I don’t need to compete against other big open worlds.

GC: But there are other concerns beyond the size of the game word. For example, the facial animation, or lack of it, is quite concerning in the teaser trailer.

YS: This has been a definite problem and what you see in the teaser is not the final development. It is a work in progress and is due to a change in the nature of the character models, rather than the facial animation itself. So what you see in the teaser is not a sign of the final game and you will see a lot of improvement before the final game.

This is also the problem of showing the game to the public. Fans want to see our progress but of course the game is not complete yet so some elements may give a slightly negative impression even though overall work is proceeding well.

GC: OK, well that’s very encouraging. I have so much more I’d like to talk to you about, but it’s been an honour to meet you.

YS: Thank you.

GC: [looking at notes] I was going to ask whether you wanted to apologise for inflicting QTEs on the world, but suddenly that seems very disrespectful.

YS: [laughs]

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