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Shenmue 3 announced after 14 years of waiting, on Kickstarter awaiting your cash

Shenmue 3

Update: Shenmue 3 has been completley funded to the tune of $2m+ in under 24 hours. That’s got to be a record, right?

If you owned a Dreamcast, chances are you have a very special place in your heart for the Shenmue series. Last seen in 2001, the demise of the Dreamcast seemed to take Shenmue with it, and for the past 14 years fans have persistently badgered creator Yu Suzuki for a sequel. 

If you’re one of those fans, you’re finally getting what you want. Shenmue 3 is real, and is on Kickstarter right now. It’s also pretty much funded now, so it’s almost guaranteed.

The Shenmue games were open world action RPGs following leather jacket-wearing Ryo. Last we saw of him he’d teamed up with Shenhua and they were off to China to search for his father’s killer. Shenmue 3 will continue their adventure, provided Suzuki and developer Ys Net can raise $2,000,000.

Not that that will be a problem. The announcement of the Kickstarter came during Sony’s E3 press event, and by the end of the event the Kickstarter was already pretty much half-funded. Now Europe is awake, expect that goal to we well and truly smashed. There’s already over 22,000 backers, exceeding $1.8m at time of writing.

Update: By mid-day, backers have fully funded Shemnue 3. Anything over that $2million will go towards making the game even better.

“If Shenmue 3 was going to get made, I wanted to make it with the fans. Through Kickstarter, I knew that could happen. Together, with Shenmue fans everywhere, I knew we could build the game that the series deserves,” wrote Suzuki on the Kickstarter page.

Since I’m writing about it, you can take it as read that the game is being developed for PC. Because the Dreamcast no longer exists, console people will be playing on PS4. Release dates are, of course, a bit up in the air due to the nature of Kickstarters, but December 2017 seems to be the current goal.