Fans of the Shenmue series will have to wait a little bit longer before playing the coveted third installment. The team behind Shenmue 3 delayed its release until November, according to a recent update. While fans were hotly anticipating the game by summer’s end on August 27, the new release date has been pushed back until November 19 in order to make the game all it can be.
In the announcement on the game’s Kickstarter page, series creator Yu Suzuki and publisher Deep Silver explained that the game “simply needs a little more refinement before being truly finished,” and they felt “the extra time we have will help us deliver the true Shenmue experience players around the world deserve!”
Since the first two games in the series were so successful, and considering that the third game was funded by fans, the delay for purposes of quality is understandable. Fans have been eagerly awaiting the game for years now. If a couple of extra months help ensure the quality is up to par with expectations, it seems like the right move to delay the game.
The original Shenmue came to North America in 2000, with the sequel in 2002. Though the third has been a long time coming, fans got a brief distraction when the original games were re-released last year for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. If the third game is as successful as its Kickstarter campaign, which set a Guinness World Record when it surpassed its funding target in only nine hours, there is a chance we may get even more Shenmue in the future. Back in 2015, Suzuki expressed a desire to finish the full story he had envisioned, which would require a fourth or fifth installment in the franchise.
In the grand scheme of things, November really isn’t that far off. It won’t be too long before we’re in China with Ryo and Shenhua!
