The announcement of Shenmue 3 several years ago is one of those moments I never expected – something which seemed like an impossibility became reality. Over 18 years after the release of Shenmue 2, the story of Ryo Huzuki would continue on modern day hardware with PlayStation 4 and PC versions confirmed. The game is set for release on November 19th but a select tier of original Kickstarter backers received access to a playable demo earlier in the week. It’s our first proper taste of the game – and I’m excited by what I’ve played.
Going into this one, there were bound to be concerns. The original Shenmue was one of the most expensive games ever made at the time of its release, developed by an industry-leading studio at the top of its game. By contrast, Shenmue 3 is crowd-funded, lower budget project put together by a much smaller team. How could it ever hope to compare?
For starters, I feel the power of modern middleware plays a large role – the flexibility of Unreal Engine 4 empowers developers to more efficiently build new experiences such as this in a way that wasn’t possible 20 years ago. Many key features already exist within the engine itself, allowing the team to experiment and utilise these features more rapidly than in the past. However, it’s the vision of what a new Shenmue game should be that I find most interesting. Yu Suzuki and his team have chosen to stick closely to the original design template rather than attempting to mimic modern open world design.
In this sense, despite the use of of a cutting-edge engine, art direction and game design are more of an evolution of AM2’s achievements back in the day, as opposed to dragging the concept kicking and screaming into the modern era. It also means that Shenmue 3 focuses on smaller but more densely packed areas rather than presenting a massive open world.
I feel this element is key to the design of the game – the smaller scale and scope helps strengthen the bond between the player and the world. As you play, you become familiar with the location, its people and the choices available to you in a way that usually doesn’t work in a typical massive open world game. This intimacy between the player and the world played a huge role in defining the original games and it seems that the team has decided to continue this tradition – which I feel is a smart decision.