Random Shenmue IV Thoughts.

I have no proof of this but if Shenmue 4 is announced we will get Shenmue 5. Even if Shenmue 4 bombs Yu could Kickstarter the last game and everyone will contribute just to see the end. Plus assets from Shenmue 3&4 will be available making costs cheaper.
 
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BruceWayne911 said:
I have no proof of this but if Shenmue 4 is announced we will get a Shenmue 5. Even if Shenmue 4 bombs Yu could Kickstarter the last game and everyone will contribute just to see the end. Plus assets from Shenmue 3&4 will be available making costs cheaper.
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Agreed. Kickstarting Shenmue 4 would be tough due to the Luke-warm reception from 3 and the way the initial Kickstarter was handled; but a strong Shenmue 4 and the promise of wrapping up the series would make a Shenmue 5 Kickstarter a lot more likely to succeed, imo. I do think it will be seen as an absolute last resort though.
 
Dg1995 said:
Yeah. We don't need to see some stuff that might get cut from the released game.

They should announce the game when the scope of the game has been determined completely.
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They don't have to show footage. They could simply use the ending from Shenmue 3 but instead of having the caption, " The Story Continues", have, "Shenmue 4 TBA."
 
For me it's a win-win. Even if the entire world would fall apart and we never get Shenmue IV.
We still have this forum and we share our unique viewing angles and creative ideas.
Shemue, for what it means to us on a personal and collective level - will live on.
Our story will go on.
 
Down by Law said:
I do absolutely believe it's coming though.
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Agreed. I'd like to think that Yu was able to arrange with his partners to see the story to completion this time and that it wasn't just a "one-off" with Shenmue 3 and that 4 and 5 would end up in jeopardy again.

As for Shenmue 4 announcement.. next year or 2022 at the latest if I were to hazard a guess.
 
If we don't get Shenmue IV i think that maybe Yu Suzuki will release the chapters in form of books, visual novel or something like that.

I have hope that we will see the remaining chapters in some form, i prefer to see as games but i think that someday we will see the remaining chapters, someday we will see the ending of Shenmue.

I have hope that we will get Shenmue IV, i need to believe, i love Shenmue so much. Shenmue means so much to me that i am even creating my own story that have a Shenmue vibe, i imagine my story as games but i don't know how to do games. :hmm:
 
ShenSun said:
Im guessing 2022 we'll hear something
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Good Lord, that feels so far away. :(

Hiki said:
If we don't get Shenmue IV i think that maybe Yu Suzuki will release the chapters in form of books, visual novel or something like that.
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Well, we all know how much this fandom loves their hypothetical book, visual novel or Saturn beta continuations (just not actual Shenmue video games, though, that crosses the line). So, a Shenmue IV PDF story outline should be excellent news for people!

Hiki said:
i need to believe, i love Shenmue so much. Shenmue means so much to me
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Me too mate. I feel you.
 
Sonoshee said:
Agreed. I'd like to think that Yu was able to arrange with his partners to see the story to completion this time and that it wasn't just a "one-off" with Shenmue 3 and that 4 and 5 would end up in jeopardy again.

As for Shenmue 4 announcement.. next year or 2022 at the latest if I were to hazard a guess.
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Yu strikes me as the sort of person to have the foresight to make that sort of deal. I mean there is absolutely no way that there were no conversations between him and the publisher about III being the final game. If III had been a surprise breakout hit, I doubt that we'd have heard anything about IV yet anyway. Deep Silver decided to take the Epic money and remove any risk of financial loss - we still don't know how much they got paid, but it was obviously substantial enough to make a years exclusivity viable, so it certainly wouldn't have been chump change. It's annoying when they had the quarterly results and said 'it sold fine' completely ignoring the fact they had a massive pay out up-front from Epic for exclusivity - they should have taken that into account. Deep Silver seemingly wanted the cake and to eat it too, but they should have known the Epic move would drastically effect sales on PC.

Hopefully YsNet is working on IV and it won't be shown until it is at a technical level that the team is happy with, unlike what happened with 3 - them being pressured into releasing material by backers when it clearly wasn't ready.

What makes me so optimistic about IV rather than III back in the day is that all the middleware to make these sort of games is so readily available and cheap - not to mention we already have the skeleton of what could be Shenmue IV in Shenmue III - a modern engine and systems already to go (and be refined and expanded on too, of course) not to mention some of the most obscure games get sequels nowadays - and they don't have massive budgets either - thinking of stuff like The Surge 2, Deadly Premonition 2 (coming off the back of an Xbox One exclusive flop to boot) and countless Eurojank RPGs.

This waiting period for a Shenmue IV announcement is frustrating for all of us , but it's really business as usual. You always know something like Uncharted 4 is coming, but it still wasn't announced until two years after Part III came out then didn't appear for another three years after that.

We just have to brace ourselves for a long wait, but I wouldn't confuse that silence with inaction on YsNet's part. I mean - we've already seen Yu taking what looks like reference photographs post Shenmue III development - if that isn't a good sign, I don't know what is.
 
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Hiki said:
If we don't get Shenmue IV i think that maybe Yu Suzuki will release the chapters in form of books, visual novel or something like that.

I have hope that we will see the remaining chapters in some form, i prefer to see as games but i think that someday we will see the remaining chapters, someday we will see the ending of Shenmue.

I have hope that we will get Shenmue IV, i need to believe, i love Shenmue so much. Shenmue means so much to me that i am even creating my own story that have a Shenmue vibe, i imagine my story as games but i don't know how to do games. :hmm:
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I'm honestly very, very sure that Shenmue IV is on its way. But I'm prepared for any ´bad news´ that may show up on the way.
We have many indicators showing it is on its way.
I have a strong feeling that a third (or something) of Shenmue III was cut and saved for the fourth game.

Do you remember that early Sh III image of Ryo standing in a fighting pose facing that agent in a black suit?
Some maybe were "tests" but in one image you can se that "donut shaped" building in the background.
That must be from Baisha village. And Yu did travel to that actual place as well.
And where did the black suit agents go? They still have the character models.
I am very sure that they did parts of Baisha. I hope they saved it for later and didn't scrap it completely.

I also think we would get the full story told by Yu in some other way if something bad happens. Manga could be one way of doing it ...

I just got a funny mental image of Yu where he sits on a comfy couch, in a room only lit by candles, drinking his red wine, looking into the camera with a bandage on his face, while reading his script for the full length of 8 hours. That would be something.

That's actually a very good thing. Write it all down. There are too many good ideas in this world that never sees the light and too many people take their ideas to their graves.
I also imagine stories, ideas and write it all down. If I have a good idea, what ever it is, I always write it down.
Some day, you can use that material for a project, share it with others or use that as inspiration for something else.
That alone could be like an entire thread of its own.
 
What I love about Shenmue I & II's combat system in comparison to other action games is how organic it feels. While other titles focus on spectacle, Shenmue is modest in nature. It's not the deepest combat system around, but its depth is engaging. On top of that, the combat isn't separate from the narrative (like most games) but is synchronized with it being a focal theme.

I believe this is due to its origins as a Virtua Fighter RPG. Another franchise to this day that still holds the crown for the most balanced and in-depth combat in gaming. This is why I would prefer a potential Shenmue IV go back to using the Virtua Fighter combat system. From both a narrative standpoint and because this franchise deserves nothing but the best.
 
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Once everything is over and Shenmue 4 (or 5) has wrapped up the story, one thing I would absolutely love is for Sega to publish, not a reboot or spiritual successor, but a guide book to the history of Shenmue which would chronicle everything about the series all the way to Shenmue 4 (or 5's) release.

One of my other favourite game series is the Tomb Raider series (I hear @Truck_1_0_1_ is also a massive fan! ;)) which has a fantastic guide called 20 Years of Tomb Raider: Digging up the Past, Defining the Future which goes into painstaking detail about the series from the Sega Saturn days all the way to 2016. By far my favourite section in that book has to be The Games That Never Were which is a full-blown chapter that showcases all the cancelled Tomb Raider projects with exclusive interviews and concept art. The chapter delves into each project and uses the developer comments to build a picture of how these games would have played, what their stories would have been and what characters we could have met.

tomb.jpg

Something like this for the Shenmue series would be awesome! It could describe the many evolutions that Shenmue went through: The Old Man and the Peach Tree demo, VFRPG: Akira's Quest, Shenmue Saturn, any initial Shenmue 3 work and beyond. It could also delve into how the chapters were originally going to be structured before being refined into what we got with Shenmue 1, 2 & 3, and also reveal exclusive details about cancelled projects like Shenmue Online.
 
Revan said:
Once everything is over and Shenmue 4 (or 5) has wrapped up the story, one thing I would absolutely love is for Sega to publish, not a reboot or spiritual successor, but a guide book to the history of Shenmue which would chronicle everything about the series all the way to Shenmue 4 (or 5's) release.

One of my other favourite game series is the Tomb Raider series (I hear @Truck_1_0_1_ is also a massive fan! ;)) which has a fantastic guide called 20 Years of Tomb Raider: Digging up the Past, Defining the Future which goes into painstaking detail about the series from the Sega Saturn days all the way to 2016. By far my favourite section in that book has to be The Games That Never Were which is a full-blown chapter that showcases all the cancelled Tomb Raider projects with exclusive interviews and concept art. The chapter delves into each project and uses the developer comments to build a picture of how these games would have played, what their stories would have been and what characters we could have met.

View attachment 8685

Something like this for the Shenmue series would be awesome! It could describe the many evolutions that Shenmue went through: The Old Man and the Peach Tree demo, VFRPG: Akira's Quest, Shenmue Saturn, any initial Shenmue 3 work and beyond. It could also delve into how the chapters were originally going to be structured before being refined into what we got with Shenmue 1, 2 & 3, and also reveal exclusive details about cancelled projects like Shenmue Online.
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I hope this happens, nice idea. I love Tomb Raider, i will search more about this guide.

Once the story of Shenmue is over in the games, will be really nice if Yu-san release the original chapters in form of books or mangas, and the covers could be the chapters concept arts, i love the arts. I dream about that a lot, i really want to see the original chapters without cuts, maybe someday we will have the chance to see the original chapters. :giggle:
 
Revan said:
Once everything is over and Shenmue 4 (or 5) has wrapped up the story, one thing I would absolutely love is for Sega to publish, not a reboot or spiritual successor, but a guide book to the history of Shenmue which would chronicle everything about the series all the way to Shenmue 4 (or 5's) release.

One of my other favourite game series is the Tomb Raider series (I hear @Truck_1_0_1_ is also a massive fan! ;)) which has a fantastic guide called 20 Years of Tomb Raider: Digging up the Past, Defining the Future which goes into painstaking detail about the series from the Sega Saturn days all the way to 2016. By far my favourite section in that book has to be The Games That Never Were which is a full-blown chapter that showcases all the cancelled Tomb Raider projects with exclusive interviews and concept art. The chapter delves into each project and uses the developer comments to build a picture of how these games would have played, what their stories would have been and what characters we could have met.

View attachment 8685

Something like this for the Shenmue series would be awesome! It could describe the many evolutions that Shenmue went through: The Old Man and the Peach Tree demo, VFRPG: Akira's Quest, Shenmue Saturn, any initial Shenmue 3 work and beyond. It could also delve into how the chapters were originally going to be structured before being refined into what we got with Shenmue 1, 2 & 3, and also reveal exclusive details about cancelled projects like Shenmue Online.
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That was a GREAT laugh for the afternoon! :D

And I wholeheartedly agree; if we got something like this for 'mue, I'd buy it immediately.
 
Would it be worth it if Shenmue 4 was a lifetime exclusive to Epic Games? The only thing I wonder about is if Epic Games goes belly up. Is there a way for you download and keep the game separate from the Epic Games launcher?
 
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