Update, August 21: The Shenmue III release date has been officially announced at Gamescom 2018.
A release date for Shenmue 3 has just been announced at Gamescom with a new trailer that was introduced by game director Yu Suzuki. The new trailer, narrated by recurring character Shenhua Ling, reveals that, sadly, you’ve still got a while to wait until you can get your hands on the long-awaited third instalment in the trilogy.
The trailer doesn’t tell us an awful lot, but what we do now know, courtesy of Suzuki, is that although 16 years have passed in reality, Shenmue 3 will pick up almost exactly where the previous game left off – the narrative begins just a single day after the end of the second game.
What’s important, however, is when you’ll actually get to experience that narrative. Sadly, the Shenmue 3 release date is more than a year away – at the end of the trailer, it’s confirmed that the game will release on August 27, 2019.
Series director Yu Suzuki told Kickstarter backers, “we are very sorry for the delay. After much discussion with our partners, Deep Silver, we have concluded that extending the release will allow us to deliver Shenmue III at its best. We promise to use this time to improve the quality of Shenmue III. We cannot thank you enough for your enduring support.”
It’s certainly not the first delay Shenmue III has received. In June 2017, Suzuki revealed that the game had been pushed to late 2018. Now, one year later, the game has been delayed again to 2019.
At least PC owners should be getting some Shenmue this year, as Sega plans to re-release both Shenmue I and II in 2018 – unless that gets pushed back too.
That’s obviously quite a long time away, but hey, you’ve been waiting this long, so what’s 12 more months? On the plus side, the world that Suzuki and his team have created looks beautiful, so hopefully it’ll be worth the wait.
Given the game has already been delayed twice (once to 2018, and then again towards its current release date), hopefully we can count on a definitive 2019 release date. You can check out the Shenmue III trailer in the video above.