A key figure from the development of the original Shenmue will be contributing to Shenmue III, developer Ys Net announced today.

In an update posted on Kickstarter, Ys revealed that Keiji Okayasu has joined the development team working on Shenmue III. Okayasu was involved from the early stages of development on the original game, serving as its game and program director. He also worked on Shenmue II, though he estimates he left after about 70 percent was complete.

The Kickstarter update is accompanied by a short interview video with Okayasu, who is credited as a subdirector on Shenmue III. (That's also how he describes his role on the first two games.) He was working as president of a small Japanese development company, Studiofake, when Shenmue creator Yu Suzuki came to him and requested he work on the new game.

"I have just recently joined the team. I thought I would be another fan waiting excitedly for the release, but as it is, I get to once again be a part of the team," Okayasu said. "Of course I want to help finish the game, and do it so the fans will be satisfied. That means making it interesting for everyone who played I and II, and everyone who will be experiencing Shenmue for the first time.

"What I personally want to stress for my part, is what makes Shenmue, Shenmue. The game has an utterly unique atmosphere, and I want that all to be breathed in. As you play along, you feel the ambiance, the milieu, from place to place, getting that full sensory experience. It is about that natural... atmosphere, as best as I can call it, because Shenmue is a game where that is so important. With Shenmue III, that aspect will not be disregarded, and I will keep it alive and well as we continue development."

He also spoke about Suzuki and his genius, which he says comes from how he often speaks "against convention." Okayasu also said Suzuki frequently questions the accepted standards and tries to think from the perspective of someone who doesn't play games.

Shenmue III was a surprise announcement at E3 2015. A successful Kickstarter campaign immediately followed the game's reveal, and Ys Net has been providing occasional updates on its development ever since.

"With our key developers on board, the prototype build started in January," Suzuki said in a recent update. "It has been six months since the project has really taken off. Battle and facial expressions are coming together, and cheers from the crew are growing. It makes me feel it will turn out to be a good game."



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Let's high the Hype ^_^

i wont get hyped untill i can actually buy the game
and the others as wel

I wish I could get excited about this. :l
Never played the other Shenmue games though.

That's so sad. You have missed a master piece. I had played both Shenmue and Shenmue 2 on the Sega Dreamcast and was amazing on its time. Have you tried a Dreamcast emulator?

there is an xbox version of shenmue 2

Nope never tried, first console I owned was a gamecube. ;)
I guess I might check it out using an emulator one day.
Unless 3 has some way of catching up on the story so far.

I tried playing Shenmue thru a DC emulator and had problems with the framerate. II I will only consider the xbox version and there's no xbox emulator that works with commercial games (if it actually exists), so I am left to wait for Sega to release HD remasters on PC. The furthest I got playing Shenmue was seeing it at someone's house when I was younger.

Was a poor college student when shenmue was released. Can't get a hold of Dreamcast to play original 2 games. I once tried emulating it but how you control character movement isn't good for m\k. You most likely need analogue gamepad to play comfortably.

Nevertheless I'm exited. Shen mue finally gets its 3rd, and probably last game, and completing the storyline. Wish I could say the same about half life. Would love to see how gordon's story ends

this is nice but won't solve the enormous lack of money that ys has, to develop even an average shenmue game

I think it won't be the last game, because Yu Suzuki had in mind 11 chapters for the entire story.

Shenmue were chapters 1 and 2
Shenmue 2 were chapters 3, 4 and 5

So maybe Shenmue 3 won't finish the story.


Some words from him:

How accurately will Shenmue III be compared to your original vision of the game or will there be major compromises?

There are a total of 11 chapters that make up the whole story. Over the past 14 years I originally planned for there to 4 or five games to the series. If at all possible, I would still like to realize the full story of 11 chapters.

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11 chapter of martial art saga full of awesomeness.
I a perfect world this won't have any problem getting funded. Too bad we don't live in such world

You are right. And there are differences from the Dreamcast version. And some graphic improvements:

http://shenmuedojo.net/new/extras/s2xboxvsdreamcast.html

Differences between the Xbox and Dreamcast versions
Shenmue II - Xbox cover

When the U.S. Xbox version was released in 2002, it brought some changes and enhancements to the original with it. The most significant difference is the inclusion of a full English dub, with Corey Marshall reprising his role as Ryo Hazuki (芭月 涼 Hazuki Ryō) from the first game. There are two new gameplay features – a Snapshot mode to take pictures of gameplay or cutscenes to store on the Xbox's hard disk and Filters to alter the color filters used on the entire screen. The graphics were improved by the Xbox's more advanced hardware (bloom lighting during the night hours, better looking water, among other features), the lengths of the load times were slightly reduced, Dolby Digital 5.1 support was added for the game's cutscenes, and the frame rate now ran at a much more consistent 30 frames per second with less loss in characters on-screen (the Dreamcast version used an aggressive character LOD that caused pedestrians to fade in and out of plain view in very crowded scenes). This was all done without many sacrifices to the original game design, with only one instance (the Worker's Pier,) of noticeable pedestrian reduction from the Dreamcast version. The Xbox version also used Quincunx Anti-Aliasing (like many Xbox games) and although the technique reduced "jaggies" associated with aliasing, fans are generally split down the middle as to whether this and the new nighttime bloom lighting effects hurt the image quality in the Xbox version of the game giving it a somewhat "blurry" or "washed out" look.

There are also many other graphical differences, mostly involving the signs on buildings, labels on jukeboxes, signs on gates, etc. having been changed or simplified from the Dreamcast version.[3]

Also added was a mode to view the player's snapshots and six side stories that could be unlocked by taking an in-game snapshot of certain characters. These side stories took the form of manga and four of them expand on areas of the story that the main game touches on, while the remaining two contain bonus art.

While the original Dreamcast version came on four GD-ROMs, the Xbox version is on one DVD and came bundled with Shenmue: The Movie on a separate DVD for play on a standard DVD player. The film is composed entirely of scenes from the first game.

One feature the Xbox version lost was the ability to import a save file from a completed Shenmue game, allowing the player to bring items and money collected in the first game to the second. However, since the player could not import his or her inventory, the Xbox port started the player off with (nearly) every item obtainable in the first game, including a majority of the capsule toys and other collectibles, though the cassettes (amongst a select few other items that can be re-obtained in this installment) are mysteriously missing. This is identical to starting the Dreamcast version without a cleared Shenmue save file.

When the Xbox version reached Europe, Microsoft chose not to utilize Sega's European localization, choosing instead to do a straight conversion from the North American release. Because of this, the European Xbox release only supports English, whereas the EU Dreamcast release features support for multiple languages.

so far the cheapest and easiest way to experience shenmue 2 is the xbox version
its easier and cheaper to buy an used xbox and a copy of the game
then the dreamcast version

Never played any Shenmue, didn't seem like the type of game that I would like.

I remember playing through Shenmue on the Dreamcast ages ago. It had some boring parts and rough edges but overall i enjoyed it.
I'd love to play part 2 and 3 (if it really gets done).