While fans were disappointed to hear thatShenmue 3had been delayed to thelatter half of 2018earlier this year, all signs point toward the fact that the game is making good forward progress. Today, developer Ys Net announced a new international publishing partnership that will facilitate the game’s physical and digital release.
Deep Silver will publishShenmue 3when it finally launches next year, over fifteen years after the previous game in the series. The Koch Media subsidiary was apparently chosen for its strong reputation for bringing Japanese games to the west.
“Throughout this process, Deep Silver has expressed a deep passion for Japanese games, the Shenmue franchise and its fans,“said the game’s director and the creator of the franchise, Yu Suzuki.“This gives me further confidence in Shenmue 3 and that we have found the best partner possible.”
Deep Silver published the memorable 2013 action gameKiller is Deadby Grasshopper. More recently, it helped out with the release ofMighty No. 9, and since last year it has served as the publisher for the Shin Megami Tensei series, arguably one of the most critically acclaimed franchises in Japanese gaming.
Shenmue 3was once considered to be something of a dream sequel, as the series' plot was originally conceived as spanning at least four games. The enormous production costs of the first game, combined with Sega’s decision to exit the console market in the early 2000s made it seem that Suzuki would never be able to realize his vision — but ahugely successful Kickstarter campaignchanged all that.
We haven’t seen all too much ofShenmue 3, and the gameskipped E3 2017earlier this year. However, fans have a lot of confidence in the director, and there’s a lot of optimism that the game will be a worthy follow-up to its two cult classic predecessors.
Shenmue 3releases for the PlayStation 4 and PC in late 2018.
