The release of Shenmue 3 is on the horizon, with the long-awaited game currently slated to launch some point in 2018. However, with it being so long since the first two games released there are plenty of people who have never even played those games. As a result, there has been talks for months about a potential remaster of the first two games on modern hardware, and today a listing has surfaced that suggests remasters are on the way.
The listing comes from a store called Alza, which recently listed both Shenmue 1 and Shenmue 2 being sold together as a pack for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. There’s no other information on these games in the listing, so unfortunately this is all the information we have at this point. Of course, seeing as this isn’t an official announcement we need to take it with a grain of salt, but due to interest being there it isn’t entirely out of the question.
One thing that I personally find odd is that this collection is listed for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. While those two platforms are pretty standard for most games to come to these days, the upcoming Shenmue 3 is only confirmed for a PlayStation 4 and PC release. It’s possible that it could end up getting an Xbox One release at some point, but for now Xbox One is completely out of the equation. This doesn’t necessarily kill this rumor, but it’s something to keep in mind.
The first two Shenmue games launched right around the beginning of the new millennium, and were game changers at the time due to their realistic visuals and voice acting. Despite both of the games being well-received, they weren’t financially successful. This resulted in the series being put on the back burner for many years, with series creator Yu Suzuki needing to go to crowdfunding in 2015 through Kickstarter in order to finally get the sequel off the ground. Luckily, the game’s Kickstarter campaign was a rousing success, raising over $6 million and becoming the most successful video game Kickstarter campaign ever.
We still don’t have a specific release date for Shenmue 3, but we’ll be sure to keep you updated as soon as more information becomes available.
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