Shenmue wins BAFTA award for “Most Influential Video Game of All Time”

It’s about time Shenmue got the recognition it rightfully deserves.

In a shocking turnout, Yu Suzuki’s darling Dreamcast epic Shenmue (1999) has just won a BAFTA game award for the “Most Influential Video Game Of All Time”. Over 2,800 people sent in text responses for what game was most deserving of this coveted award, rather than the British Academy of Film and Television Arts nominating a bunch of games of their choosing. Out of 20 other highly influential and well known video games that the public vouched for, including Super Mario Bros. (1985), Doom (1994), Minecraft (2011), Half-Life (1998), and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998), the majority ruled that Shenmue was the rightful winner.

If you’d like to see what BAFTA had to say about Shenmue, check in after the break.

Here’s BAFTA’s write-up on Shenmue on their “Most Influential Video Game of All Time” page.

A surprise number one in some respects, and yet Yu Suzuki’s 1999 opus increasingly feels like the original blueprint for the dynamic, detailed settings that have since become the expected norm at gaming’s bleeding edge. Settings used in such industry titans like the Grand Theft Auto and Assassin’s Creed franchises. The phrase “living, breathing world” might be a marketing cliché today, but when Shenmue arrived, it accurately described the game’s astonishingly vivid rendition of Yokosuka, where taciturn hero Ryo Hazuki searches for his father’s killer.

That straightforward but absorbing revenge plot played second fiddle to the simple pleasures of inhabiting such a convincing urban space with its own timetable. Non-player characters were granted lives of their own, and so Ryo would have to fit into their routines and rituals. In both its embrace of a slower-paced lifestyle and its use of an in-game clock to dictate the player’s activities, it could be seen as a precursor to Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley. The quieter moments in otherwise noisy blockbusters such as Uncharted 4, The Last Of Us Part II and God of War surely took their cues from Suzuki’s game. And its spirit lives on through the increasingly popular Yakuza/Like A Dragon series, which similarly encourage you to slow down every now and again.

Shenmue may have struggled commercially on release, but if it felt out of step with its peers, that’s only because it marched to its own leisurely rhythm. And as we all know, the genius of the true pioneers is often only appreciated after the fact. Its unique appeal is summed up by voter Jessie Strife: “I played this game when it initially launched, and even now, I’ve yet to encounter another game quite like it. Shenmue holds a special place in my heart.”

Most fans would argue this was a long time coming. After all, Shenmue broke a lot of ground for its then-unheard of open world game structure. Time flowed by with certain events happening and certain people doing different things at different times of day. You could pick up items to take a closer look. You could talk to virtually anyone (Even if a lot of people weren’t very sociable). It taught people that they had to do a lot of hard work to achieve certain goals or learn new skills. It presented its story with amazingly shot and choreographed cinematic animations, even compared to other cinematic games of its time like Metal Gear Solid (1998) (Also one of the other 20 nominees).

Cinematic and open world games are much more common nowadays, and just about all of them owe it to Shenmue for paving the way, but it doesn’t usually get talked about in the same circles as most of the other 20 games that were considered for Most Influential Video Game of All Time. Perhaps that’s because it sadly didn’t achieve great sales numbers like most of those games did, but just because a game didn’t sell in its day doesn’t usually mean it didn’t make an impact. For some people, like the voter Jessie Strife, who was quoted above, Shenmue is a game that really sticks in the minds of those fortunate enough to have experienced it.

Do you agree that Shenmue was the right choice for this award? Are there any other games that you think could’ve been considered for that award that weren’t? What do you personally think of Shenmue, if you’ve played it? Let us know in the comments below.

And don’t forget, Shenmue and Shenmue II are both available in HD on Steam, Xbox, and PS4/5 today, so you can easily play it even without a Dreamcast nowadays.

 

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