How the new entry in the famous franchise could be an alternative to the rest of the open-world genre. Source: Shenmue.link




A New Challenger



Shenmue III’s initial E3 reveal and Kickstarter have come and gone. There’s a PayPal slacker backer campaign running currently now for those who missed the Kickstarter, but most of the dramatics and controversy related to the game have slowly died down. And yet, there’s still a common observation among game players that Shenmue III couldn’t have much to offer in today’s gaming climate, just as much as there’s a sentiment of being wholly unfamiliar with the saga. Released in Japan in 1999, two years before Grand Theft Auto III, some - including me - would argue that Shenmue beat it to the punch. But whereas Shenmue I sold a mere 1 million worldwide, GTAIII went on to spawn an entire line of clones as Shenmue slept in gaming’s forever growing cold storage pit. Largely due to low sales, a 47 million budget for both game’s combined, and an understandable lack of confidence from Sega’s executives.


Sega exec lamenting low Dreamcast sales in What’s Shenmue. Source: ShenmueDojo



Rife with almost forced regularity, open-world games are no longer as special or new as they were in Shenmue’s heyday. Of the top ten best selling games last year, four of them were open-world. As it is, yesterday’s new is today’s normal. It seems almost every game has turned their franchise into open-world. Licensed Batman games, the growing assortment of open-world first person shooters, and even more traditional franchises and genres such as Tales of and Metal Gear Solid are trying to cut a nice, fat slice of sandbox pie - often to mixed results. Even if it feels they don’t need to, many developers are embracing the play style.




With so many options and practically every developer stamping their open-world footprint, it’s common to read or hear the idea that Shenmue III won’t stand out upon its release because, as a genre originator, and despite the countless games it has inspired from Bully to Yakuza, it couldn’t possibly keep up. Some players feel other games have improved upon its formula, making it obsolete or even redundant. For many, the current line of thinking is that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, and that there’s no need for a new Shenmue.

Or is there?

Go Small Or Go Home



A simple Google search for “open-world fatigue” will render over 4,000,000 results. A lengthy Google search result, it shows a growing apathy, weariness, and in some cases, disdain for how it has infected practically every genre. What was once jammed with detail, and rewarded players for experimentation and exploration is now seen as a genre full of plodding travel filler that bogs down the games pace. Bland maps at the expense of interesting art design. Endless quest markers and hand-holding. Ludonarrative dissonance. And a term that I’m going to coin checklist gaming, a gameplay style where the main goal is to check off quests completed for 100% more than delivering a cohesive game experience where everything matters. With more size than sense, the Sandbox Arms Race has been raging for some time, and what was once a genre that captivated is now mired in pointless routine. A former lover of the genre and large game worlds, I now recoil when I’m now forced to trek through today’s plodding tedium with only a few exceptions. An observation I find peace in knowing I’m not alone on.




Even Final Fantasy can’t get away from quest markers. Source: GamesRevolution



But there’s light at the end of the tunnel, and it isn’t another Wasteland. Going by past games in the series, and what Yu Suzuki has said of his target for the game, Shenmue III hopes to offer a fair alternative to today’s growing open-world fatigue.




The Video Game Dissonance



As a story-based game series centered purely around the character of Ryo Hazuki, Shenmue places rules and limitations on its open-world. As other open-world games stress emphasis on doing anything you want, Shenmue stresses freedom that merely acts as a reinforcement on Ryo’s personality and character.




As a seasoned martial artist who has practiced since he was a young boy, and as the new head of his family’s Dojo, he can’t exactly fight anyone he wants. To do so would be disrespectful and dishonorable. Aside from sparring with NPC’s and practicing moves for mastery, fighting in Shenmue is predicated by the story. By comparison, in GTA, you can beat an NPC to death as soon as you gain control of the character.



On one hand, this makes Shenmue highly controversial and divisive. Some players find the lack of emphasis on fighting in a game about martial arts to be everything against what gaming is about. Others find the relaxed pace to be too slow for their liking and want more action. While valid points, I disagree. It’s smart to remember that because battles are sparse, it only reinforces the idea that every fight should count and makes each one come off as that much more important. Having fighting be informed by the story shouldn’t be considered a bad thing unless you’re looking for a very specific type of game.




On the other hand, there’s an equally valid criticism aimed at games that allow you to fight so freely. Niko Bellic, the star character of Rockstar Games’ 25 million blockbuster Grand Theft Auto IV, is written to be a sympathetic character who no longer desires to kill. During the gameplay there’s a massive contradiction in that it’s virtually impossible to say, drive, without running over an NPC even with the most pacifist of play styles. You’re going to kill sometime, and you’re going to be killing a lot. This leads to what we call ludonarrative dissonance. Its effects on gaming and limiting its potential as an entertainment medium have been discussed at length over years.



The open-world genre - especially Grand Theft Auto - is highly susceptible to dissonance of what the game’s story tells us, the player, and the actual content of the gameplay. This is a natural consequence of allowing you to do anything in the game at the expense of narrative and zero limitations. Zero limitations also often means zero realistic consequences. So while in Skyrim you’re the leader of multiple guilds, every soldier in every city is going to treat you like a nobody scrub, sarcastically asking about a sweet roll. John Marston of Red Dead Redemption has a good-nature that is in complete conflict with the amount of people you kill. While it’s not an open-world game, Nathan Drake has the kill count of a small country at this point.


Let me be frank when I say that this is a problem not only with the sandbox genre, but gaming at large. Many developers are writing stories written around the game design, rather than the opposite, which ultimately compromises their artistic vision. So when arguing that games are an art form, it’s wise to remember this very delicate addendum: that games live and die by the player’s own set of expectations. Unfortunately, many player’s expectations is to kick ass first, kick more ass later. It deeply says a lot about the gaming medium’s over-reliance on violence, but that could be saved for its own article.

In essence, the open-world genre is broken and limited by its own constraints. Alternatives that return to more limited gaming worlds could be a possible solution.




This is what makes Shenmue’s gameplay so radical. You essentially can’t do anything Ryo wouldn’t do. You could possibly see that lack of complete openness as a deterrent from the open-world, if your idea of open-world means being able to cause random swaths of chaos. Or you can see it - as I do - as a silver lining that allows Shenmue and others games like it to reach narrative highs due to its unwavering dedication to its story and realism.

A Destiny That Could Either Destroy Him or Realize His Will



There’s a lot that separates Shenmue from the modern sandbox game, but the most glaring difference is the story and the way it presents it. Shenmue also has a far larger focus on story than other games in the genre by far. As it is, gameplay is mostly there to affirm the story, not the other way around. Yet it has very few cutscenes, and an unwavering gameplay focus.




Shenmue stars Ryo Hazuki, an 18 year-old Japanese youth hailing from the country town of Yokosuka. Ryo, like other young men his age, lives in routine: he wakes up, gathers his allowance as he steps outside the door, does his stuff, comes home by a set curfew, and repeat. But whereas the player can choose what they want to do during the minute by minute gameplay, the game series is very much about Ryo and his character growth.



Shenmue starts with the murder of his father, Iwao Hazuki, at the hands of a mysterious man with a just as mysterious fighting style: Lan Di. Ryo sets off to exact his revenge, determined to see justice for his father’s death. The Yokosuka police have washed their hands of the case not only due to the sheer size the case would require, but also the fact that Lan Di has ties to the Chinese Cartel. Being a small town, there’s nothing their police can do against an organization so large. Ryo ends up taking on the task himself: finding information, getting contacts, finding known associates and tracking his foe’s trail. Detective work. Other video games, upon a revenge story, would validate the main character’s wishes but Shenmue routinely bucks the status quo and openly questions them.




Ryo doesn’t wake up and start hauling ass immediately after the opening cutscene. Instead, he wakes up in a depressed funk three days later, sweating from nightmares of his father being murdered in front of his eyes. Partly due to the trauma of his father’s murder, and also partly due to simply how taxing his desire for revenge is, his character has a very noticeable arc. Ryo starts behaving in ways that mystify those close to him: he starts coming home late, getting into random fights with people, seeking out dangerous people and dangerous parts of town. A Senior at Yokosuka High, he decides to drop out of school. His close ones remind him constantly how much he’s changed. People have to end up reminding him of his duty to his family. Being the last of the Hazuki line, he has certain obligations to his family, home, and Dojo and needs to honor his surname. But nothing placates his desire. When his father is killed, he reminds Ryo to keep those he loves close to him, but the underlining theme of Shenmue I is that he never really does, as Ryo becomes more and more socially withdrawn. There’s a tragic element to Shenmue, and it’s no surprise that its most used colors are gray and white. At its heart, Shenmue is a game of sadness and loss as much as it is about revenge, which is only reinforced by its atmosphere and music.



Part Kung Fu martial arts adventure, part tale of destiny, part revenge story, Shenmue’s worlds are affirmed more than anything else, by relatable human emotions and the questioning of one’s actions. In Shenmue II, Ryo’s character goes from merely depressed and withdrawn, to openly confrontational and even surprisingly violent. As he leaves his homeland of Japan to journey to China to find Lan Di, he further separates himself from the ideals his father instilled in him. The pain of his father’s loss is quickly destroying him.




Ryo’s transformation from good kid hailing from a comfortable Japanese country town, to highly irritable reckless youth who’s willing to toe the line of chaos in the pits of Hong Kong and Walled City Kowloon is a natural one. The Hazuki heir joins the company of thieves and gangsters to find more information on Lan Di and the cartel he associates with. For in Shenmue, as a common trope in the Kung Fu hero genre, notably The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and Drunken Master, Ryo is ultimately powerless in his journey to become powerful against his nemesis. Despite the guidance of every person who has told him to stop his journey for revenge - a major plot point in II - he continues it with brash bullheadedness, and also despite all of that, he’s still a good kid you could still trust. A fish out of water, he loses, a lot, and is reminded of how foolish his plan is, and how inexperienced a fighter he is by the minute. Because despite the very adult decision to want to exact revenge on a man, he is still a child.





Stop Tripping, I’m Tripping Off The Power



In the open-world genre a good point of contrast to the Shenmue series would be Saints Row. It’s a nice comparison because whereas Shenmue shakes its proverbial head at needless violence to honor what martial arts stand for, Saints Row revels in it. The game series stars a character aptly named The Protagonist/The Boss: a sociopathic gangster who only knows violence, revenge, and getting what they want. The Boss also has a large arc across multiple games much like Ryo. In a major story thread in Saints Row 2 after an antagonist - Maero - kills one of the The Boss’ most trusted lieutenants, Carlos, the game sets up a mission where you kidnap Maero’s girlfriend Jessica. Boss locks her inside her car trunk, drives her car down to Maero’s monster truck rally where he ruthlessly runs over the car, ramming into it multiple times. In a highly distressing (and badass) scene, The Boss throws Jessica’s car keys at Maero, leaving him to find his dead girlfriend in the trunk.


Maero’s morbid confrontation with The Boss. Source: youtube

If the Shenmue series represents a gaming that is aware of its humanity, Saints Row as it is now, represents a gaming that is fully aware of its own sociopathy. Whereas Shenmue is a game of feeling powerless, Saints Row represents the open-world genre’s- and gaming’s - obsession with power trips. Power trips are partially why a large segment of gaming purely exists now. This isn’t a dig aimed at Saints Row - it is one of my favorite current game franchises - it does what it does very well. But whereas Saints pulls it off, many other games in the genre stumble.




Going back to Grand Theft Auto IV, also a revenge story. Unlike Shenmue, GTAIV embraces its revenge subplot. While it meanders, it tries to justify the actions of Niko as a means to an end, who, despite not wishing to kill, keeps doing it for cheap pay. Though you have a choice of killing or forgiving the traitor when you eventually find them, it loses its impact because of Niko’s previous willingness to kill so readily, so coldly, without justification. It almost feels like the developers sacrificed their story to make the game more easily digestible for the mainstream. The game’s story loses its impact partly due to Rockstar’s very understandable compromise, quite unlike Shenmue and Saints Row’s unparalleled resolve to stick to their guns.

Shenmue III as a sequel to Shenmue II, has a lot of potential to explore the themes that have made the previous two games’ stories so resonant. In II, after a strong section filled with street fighting, gangs, and absolute chaos, Ryo travels to the Guilin region of China to continue his search for Lan Di. As a sort of preview to Shenmue III, there are hints of Ryo beginning to look inward, transitioning from the urban jungle of the Walled City to the vast green of Guilin. If the original Shenmue tackled sadness, the second game focused on anger, then Shenmue III aims to tackle healing and a more inward approach. The first Shenmue’s main colors are gray and white; Shenmue III’s is green. Shenmue III is a culmination of a two game spiritual journey. Considering gaming’s endless compromise to sacrifice story potential for the average player, looking inward is a refreshing change for games.




Especially for a genre so famously known for its power fantasies.




The Boss doing their thing. Source: allgamesbeta.



The Closed Open-World



Extrapolating from that, due to the nature of Ryo’s personality, he’s stoic just enough to have a defined character arc and personality, while still allowing the player to feel like they’re actually in his shoes purely because of the game’s world limitations rather than in spite of it.




The twist of Shenmue is you are essentially playing out Ryo’s life. Barely anything he does is handled with a cutscene. You end up doing things an adventurous teenager would do with the wheels off: going to the arcade, buying toys, music, gambling. When Ryo gets a part time job he wakes up every day near the crack of dawn to travel to the harbor and work that forklift, which you drive, and have a quota to meet from 9 to 5. When you get to China and meet a martial arts master that has you air out the temple library’s books to hopefully cool Ryo’s resolve and think on the true nature of his revenge the game holds no punches and forces Ryo to wake up every day, having the player work until noon. While other open-world games use their environment as a sandbox to constantly reward the player and give them new toys to play with, Shenmue uses its environments to tell a highly involved story and immerse the player.


Xiuying at the Taoist Temple in Hong Kong. This is a Dreamcast game.

Source: ShenmueDojo user Ziming



That’s not to say the game is linear and doesn’t allow freedom. It does, but in a more limited manner. There’s a large assortment of mini games to play: darts, darts betting competitions, part time jobs, street fights each with a varying gimmick, multiple ways of gambling, classic Sega arcade games, Lucky Hit for various prizes, arm wrestling, capsule toys, martial arts moves, hidden side quests, or the hundreds of others things to find and collect. If you want, you can ignore the story and do all of the above instead. Being constrained to a games limitations doesn’t mean it has nothing to do in it.




Shenmue is a game that values normalcy. Described by Suzuki as the “presence of everyday”, the games are deliberate in their attempt of replicating normal human life. Playing it at a more relaxed pace, the games have a structure similar to that of classic adventure games in the point and click tradition - lots of questions and dialogue, occasional puzzles, a heavy emphasis on exploration. When things are supposed to happen in the game, they often do so at set times, having the player meet schedules. In the original Shenmue, this meant waiting around for appointments. There was no skip feature, and you couldn’t fast forward time (you can in II, and likely will in III, though it is optional). Instead, it takes that element out of the player’s hands, and forces them to explore its world and participate in its environment, which makes the game challenging in a non-conventional sense. Since as game players, we’re used to game structure only handled by our wants and wishes, it’s quite a departure to play a game that takes certain elements of control away from the player while still not holding their hand. In the end, it teaches the player to be more patient. It also ties into the feeling of powerlessness that makes up Shenmue’s gameplay. As it is, certain limitations make its world more pronounced.



Allowing players to always have what they want, and when they want it comes at a cost. Modern open-world games are the anti-thesis of patience. Factoring into the inherent nature of basing a genre on power fantasies and hundreds of options, sometimes more control can mean that choices feel like they’re superficial, arbitrary, or have less weight. When constrained to taking certain levels of power out of players’ hands, it certainly makes exploration that much more refreshing. There’s a certain appeal to limitation. Endlessly rewarding the player, sometimes even without any justifiable merit, today’s open-world games have tied their structure to be digestible for mass consumption. A genre now famous for holding players’ hands, today’s sandboxes are perfectly satisfied with breaking immersion by always telling the player what to do and how to do it. You can argue they’re no longer a open-world, in some specific cases. Comparing to Shenmue, while giving you an appointment you have to wait for, by allowing you to choose how you spend your time freely, despite the less amount of options, Shenmue feels like it has more freedom purely because it doesn’t hold your hand.




A large assortment of games now come with quest markers, which in some games you can’t even turn off, as seen in the recently released Tales of Zestiria. Leading to a fairly homogenous gaming experience, the genre that made its name for rewarding players who travel the unknown and explore the freedom of their own play styles is now steeped in baggage. It’s almost as if they can’t release a game without telling player’s what to do anymore. Or if they have any confidence they have any right to. As it is, the open-world no longer feels open and has become comparable to a barren husk, with few exceptions. So it’s no surprise that it’s causing thousands to discuss their growing weariness of the genre as it infects every other game type it touches.



Interactivity is another sticking point. GTA is a highly interactive beast. Go into a barber shop and you have a whole range of choices to choose from. You can customize your outfit to the car you drive. You can sky dive out of jet planes and land onto mountains where you’re attacked by roving wildcats. So there’s the natural assumption that Shenmue, due to its smaller locations, game limitations, and rules placed on the player, couldn’t possibly offer anything in comparison. Except that’s not exactly true. Start to look at the worlds of GTA analytically, and they start to feel almost like window dressing. Pretty to look at, but offering very little in terms of actual function or creating an immersive world. There’s endless amounts of buildings in downtown Los Santos in GTAV, but how many can you actually enter? There’s a sweet temptation with size and scale, but it comes with a price.


In contrast with Sega’s epic, if there’s a door in the Shenmue franchise, it’s likely you can go inside. You can open drawers and rummage around Ryo’s things, you can find a flashlight inside the cupboard at the front of his house and explore his basement with it, you can go inside an antique shop and snoop. When you examine anything, Ryo picks it up with his hand and the game allows you to turn it to see extraneous details. When you use the phone, you actually dial the number. For those who opine the lack of interiors in open-worlds, Yu Suzuki’s Shenmue saga should offer a valuable alternative.




More Than One Type of Open-World

Some of Shenmue’s critics use as a talking point that it’s boring and not very fun to play. I beg to differ. As an experienced open-world game fan, I have love for the Grand Theft Auto’s, Fallout: New Vegas’, and Saints Row’s as much as anybody else. Besides the Japanese role-playing genre, it’s easily the type of game I’ve racked the most hours playing. Even I struggled with first playing Shenmue. For a time, at least. Anyone who’s played it and loves it, knows that it’s something that grows on you and appreciate the more spend time with it. You must be willing to empty your cup to enjoy Yu Suzuki and his team’s tea. A game challenging your own biases on what a game should be shouldn’t be viewed as a bad thing.




It’s not like there aren’t games already that are similar to Shenmue. Take Bully, a game about a schoolboy who attends a private school. In Bully you have to go to class, meet deadlines, and like Shenmue, have a specific limitation on what you can do as deemed by the narrative and Jimmy’s personality. Bully, like Shenmue before it, also takes place in a small town that’s more laden with personal and intricate details rather than the genre staple of the urban sprawl. Taking certain obvious cues and keys of inspiration, it was rated very highly. It’s clearly inspired by some of the more minute element of Shenmue.


Jimmy participating in music class. Source: IGN.com



Gaming always has room for alternatives in the face of rapidly growing homogeneity. But the way it’s being communicated, it’s as if some gamers consider large, open worlds to be the only valid interpretation of the genre. There’s an equally valid approach to smaller, more densely detailed open worlds that harp on the personal, the intimate, and the “sense of everyday” such as Bully and Shenmue. No one style should be seen as the supreme interpretation, but another view of the same genre but from a different angle, and there’s enough room for both.

A Hopeful Look To The Future

So what does this mean for Shenmue III? Well, everything. Yu Suzuki and his team are working hard on Shenmue III. Named after their long work habits regularly working until 2 AM in the morning, YS Net’s former AM2 staff are settling into their development role nicely. Rejuvenated with the positivity of the most successful game Kickstarter, and the dreams of a game that had a 14 year wait, the team is doing all it can to abide by the fans and their expectations. More importantly, they are abiding by the dream of Shenmue III.




Despite the limited budget compared to before, YS Net hopes to promise that Shenmue III will be the Shenmue players remember. The budget shouldn’t be much of a concern in the making of Shenmue III, although a little more money could always certainly help.



On top of the established open- world standardized by previous Shenmue games, Shenmue III promises to go even deeper into the human and personal elements of the franchise. In an eye-opening interview with Eurogamer, Yu Suzuki told the reporter that while they have had to readjust the game according to the budget, the game is still Shenmue. “The concept’s the same. The essential idea and concept has never changed. What’s changed is what’s possible with the technology available.” Which is nice to hear.


Shenmue III appears to be focusing on what made the originals stand out and be so special. Its structure is being left untouched, and will “continue in the steps of its predecessors, having about five to six basic paths depending on the circumstances” according to an interview with Otaku Mode. Yu Suzuki knows more than anybody what gave Shenmue its distinct signature, further expressing it will be retaining its every day presence and appreciation of the normal: “I’m not planning on doing anything grandiose, I just want to draw out the interestingness that lies concealed behind the curtains of everydays.”

Admitting he doesn’t really play games, it only stands to give further confidence in the game that it won’t be inspired by outside gaming influences. Notably the open-worlds it once pioneered that have slowly lost their way.




Shenmue III’s developers fully understand the limitations that they placed on previous games gave it its signature panache and sense of authentencity and are attempting to enhance it. Billed the Character Perspective System, which was reached at the Kickstarter’s $5 million level, the system will allow players to switch between Ryo, Shenhua, and Ren. Because of each character’s own individuality, certain limitations will be placed on the open-world depending on who you’re controlling. Shenhua, for example, isn’t likely to fight, period. Whereas the thief, Ren, would likely pick fights with anyone. “Since the surrounding world is very important in Shenmue, I put great emphasis on the differences in perception, and these differences will also be reflected in the characters’ behavior. For example, when you are playing with Ryo, you will only have options from Ryo’s world, so even if Ryo can’t do something, you might progress further with Ren or stay even more ahead if you are Shenhua.”

Sounds exciting! Going back to old interviews with 1up done by the esteemed James Mielke, Yu Suzuki has talked about the concept for Shenmue III for years, and is sticking to it. An enhanced dialogue system, multiple character perspectives, a retained sense of everyday life, Shenmue III so far understands what Shenmue is, but more than that, what Shenmue could be.




In a genre that increasingly has grown to the point of causing fatigue in players, known for its large worlds and emphasis on letting them do what they please, certainly there’s enough room for a story-based take on the genre that stresses the personal. While many argue that Shenmue’s time has passed, I argue we need it and games like it now more than ever, and thankfully we’re getting it. While other games do their hardest to not tie themselves to the mundane or the everyday, the Shenmue series is fantastic purely because it ties itself to the everyday and most human in all of us. If Shenmue III replicates even a quarter of the magic of the originals, it’ll be something special.



We need more games like it. Sometimes, maybe bigger really doesn’t necessarily mean better.


Naomi Daniels can be reached on twitter via @wiseassnomi where she harps on politics, media, and how fucking awesome pro wrestling is.

