As Shenmue 3 enters the third month of post-Kickstarter development, a much welcomed progress report has been posted detailing what the team has been up to and what they plan to work on in the coming months. Most exciting are four screens of the game in-progress showcasing battle tests, a cutscene, and an environment which you can see after the break or at the above link.
In this stage of development, map testing is the team’s focus. Map testing is described as the process of defining the different areas to ensure they are neither too big or too small. Not only are location sizes being adjusted, but so too are population density of NPCs.
In regards to the screens, it is mentioned that objects are placeholders. So Ryo is an older model and the men in black suits are not intended to be final – damn, I was hoping for a rematch. Interestingly, the strange angles used in the battle scenes seen above an below are noted for being taken at an angle so as to avoid spoilers. Who knows what or who could be lurking just outside of the frame… Goro!?
The team is described as being in high spirits, as they can finally begin testing. Some staff are even working Saturdays! The update also mentions the Kickstarter surveys, which are still in the works. No specific timeline is given, aside from “as soon as possible”. The update ends with a link to a commuinity update pack which features a Yu Suzuki interview featuring questions submitted by Shenmue fansites (hey, Ys Net, why not reach out to the SEGA fan sites?) as well as other treats just in time for Halloween.
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Nice to see some early progress. We complain a lot but yu suzuki is really to his promise. He never lies. I like that in him. No political deceptive answers only straight forward
I’m thinking either this game will feel dated or not get the attention it deserves.
Sega made Shenmue what it is, they hyped that game big time on the Dreamcast, but as Sega isn’t involved in anything other than a mere advisory role, it will probably depend on Sony’s marketing, they know it was the most demanded game on the PS4 so that may be something for them to work on. Though interestingly, there’s been talk recently about it making way to thee X1 eventually as well, which seems strange as this would interfere with the Sega-Sony deal with YS-Net, unless Sony is simply offering to market the PS4 version.
MS already turned down Shenmue, it was down to a misinterpretation of what Yu Suzuki said when asked how his conversation with microsoft went regarding the game he replied “I will leave that to your imagination”
Yu Suzuki has never once said it wont make to the X1, so nothing definite on that other than that it isn’t officially announced at this stage like it is for the PC and PS4.
That is true, however Phil Spencer of Xbox has stated that he had an opportunity to consider Shenmue and decided that it would not have a “big impact” on the Xbox and that they would be focusing their energy on their first party titles. http://www.shenmuedojo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=48911
So, although anything could happen in the future, it sounds very unlikely to show up on Xbox and as consumers we should put our support behind what we know is happening.
for some reason crazy people on blogs thought he meant OMG OMG OM GIT SCOMING TO XBOX!!! when actually he meant that the conversations did not go well lol…
If Shen III is using unreal engine 4, what did the first two Shenmue games use?
A custom engine developed in-house – I don’t know that it was given a name.
I read that someone on the Shenmue 500k page on Facebook recently claim it used Criterion as the base or something like that, but if it was all in-house, maybe Sega built their own engine from scratch as no other system was available at the time to allow for the features and mechanics that Shenmue is made of, in that case it seems more feasible.
I’m hope to God they don’t cock this game up, I’m thinking that Yu Suzuki might only see it as a means to an end – just get the rest of the story of the series revealed to shut people up rather than strive to excel with the project like the first games which were revolutionary, hopefully not. But as it’s no longer the Dreamcast’s flagship production as the first two games were, there may be significantly less ambition to strive with the rest of the series as they did with the start of the series on the Dreamcast.
It seems that you imagine Yu Suzuki might be some kind of cynical burnout from that description. He’s been working behind the scenes for years to get this opportunity. No matter how it turns out, I have no doubt that he’s doing his best.