Reusable Shenmue 3 Assests and the Shenmue 4 Budget

Rakim

なんまいだー
Joined
Jul 27, 2018
I see the ability to reuse Shenmue 3 assets mentioned occasionally when the budget for 4 is being discussed but as I don't know anything about making games I can only guess what can and can't be used and exactly how significant this is to the budget of a game. Can someone knowledgeable on the subject elucidate on the specifics?

How much copying and pasting will they be able to do now that they have one game in the can? What stuff is reusable and what will they have to create from scratch?
Realistically how big of a percentage will this take off the budget for the next game?
 
They could reuse the engine, a lot of the character models, a lot of the objects and building designs, the music (again), the animations. There’s really isn’t much that they couldn’t reuse.

In theory they could just rearrange and retexture Niaowu to create a new map and write and record some new dialogue. I’d guess that they could, at the very least, cut their workload in half and still create a superior game.

I can’t see YS doing that though. I think he’ll want to tweak/improve the engine and I’d be surprised if we didn’t get some new music too.

If the game is ever made and it releases on PS5, I think they’d have to improve the graphics a little and do a better job of optimizing the game to provide a more stable frame-rate and remove drop in.
 
A lot of the assets can be reused, such as:
  • 3D Props (think of things like vases, dishes, jugs, bottles, food, tables, chairs, etc)
  • Systemic ("non-cutscene") Animations (though I hope there will be improvements and new ones)
  • SFX - Some of this is dependent on what's changed in the game visually, but you could reuse fighting, QTE, UI, foley/footsteps, interaction sounds. Possibly some ambience.
  • Music - though like many have said, the implementation should be improved in SIV. It would be nice to get some new music thrown in as well.
  • Character Models for main characters.
Systems that can carry over:
  • Any of the minigames/arcade games can essentially be copied/pasted right into the game.
  • Fighting System (will probably get some updates)
  • Day/Night system (will probably need some updates depending on location)
  • Dialog System/infrastructure
  • Investigate system (faster, please!)
  • UI - Though I'd say we'd need an update here.

Stuff that will mostly be new in SIV:
  • VO - Maybe there are some rare cases you can reuse some files, but the savings probably aren't worth it and it would make more sense to record 100% new material .
  • Environments - You'd probably need new architecture for the new locations, and the layout would be brand new. You could maybe re-use trees/flowers/grass but a lot of that will be determined by whether it would match the new locations.
  • NPC Character models - Maybe you can get away with minimal copy/paste or make small tweaks to existing models, but more than likely these will all have to be new.
  • Cutscenes and QTEs
As for putting a price on how much budget it will save, it will be hard to tell exactly but I would say it's pretty significant. However, the expectations for a PS5 game like tomboz mentioned might require some improved graphical fidelity, and a lot can depend on how much the re-use will be a detriment to the new project.
 
I mean outside of putting some bells and whistles on (IE different water/rain effects or shaders) the game is pretty next gen ready. Heres a video of S3 backer running in 4K on PC with High settings:

For an indie game I'm not really sure there's much that would change especially with its art style in the move to next Gen. Obviously things like FOV (the fade in/out of characters) could be increased but thats a small optimization tweak.

It could be turned around 2 years rather than the 4 1/2 it took to get here - especially if all you did was take the same game and essentially added onto it rather than any serious changes. Now they probably would look at adding in some extra mini-games and maybe tweak certain elements. Larage amounts of assets could be reused - main characters, random NPC's, all the shop items, textures, environmental elements (trees, benches, boats, stones etc. etc.)

If you have a Shenmue 3 in theory you could make a Shenmue 4 for a lot less money.
 
I mean outside of putting some bells and whistles on (IE different water/rain effects or shaders) the game is pretty next gen ready. Heres a video of S3 backer running in 4K on PC with High settings:

For an indie game I'm not really sure there's much that would change especially with its art style in the move to next Gen. Obviously things like FOV (the fade in/out of characters) could be increased but thats a small optimization tweak.

It could be turned around 2 years rather than the 4 1/2 it took to get here - especially if all you did was take the same game and essentially added onto it rather than any serious changes. Now they probably would look at adding in some extra mini-games and maybe tweak certain elements. Larage amounts of assets could be reused - main characters, random NPC's, all the shop items, textures, environmental elements (trees, benches, boats, stones etc. etc.)

If you have a Shenmue 3 in theory you could make a Shenmue 4 for a lot less money.
I'm guessing that was why Shenmue 2 was so much larger, and had so much more it. The BS work was already done. I hope PS5 coming out won't force them to redo much. Some of that art style I hope they don't keep. Many many NPCs look just fine and realistic.
 
Models and animations should be improved as well, especially facial ones for main chars with a more natural walking/running cycle.
NPCs of Bailu are perfect imho, the issue is just present in Niaowu with low quality faces / odd artstyle.
Oh and no more Mr.Muscles types please :)
 
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