Shenmue 3 was one of the biggest reveals at this year’s E3 as it finally confirmed to fans who had been waiting over a decade for a sequel that they would finally be getting one. The game’s creator, Yu Suzuki, took the project to Kickstarter and asked for $2 million, which the campaign reached in less than 12 hours. The campaign ended up raising over $6 million, becoming the game to raise the most amount of money on Kickstarter of all-time. However, more money would be needed to reach some of the game’s higher-end stretch goals, which resulted in the Slacker Backer program that allowed people to donate through PayPal even though the original campaign had ended.
Thanks to the Slacker Backer program Shenmue 3 has reached a new funding goal, raising an additional $170,000 and bringing the campaign’s overall total to $6.5 million. Reaching this milestone of the campaign ensures that rag doll physics will be added to the combat of the game, which will certainly go a long way to ensure that the characters move as realistically as possible. There are still several million dollars worth of stretch goals to go that exceed $11 million, but seeing as the campaign has only raised an additional $170,000 since it ended it doesn’t seem like any of those stretch goals have a shot at being reached.
The original Shenmue game launched for the Sega Dreamcast in 1999 and was a revolutionary game at the time. However, due to the steep costs needed to develop the game and the failure of the Dreamcast resulted in the game not selling nearly enough to break even. Shenmue II launched in 2001 for the Dreamcast in Japan, though it took a year later for the game to be ported to the original Xbox so gamers in North America could play it. That game also cost a lot and didn’t sell enough to break even, resulting in the series remaining in limbo for over a decade. The estimated release date for Shenmue 3 is unknown at this time, though the playable beta/demo for the game could end up coming out by the end of next year.
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