Shenmue 3 Developer Interview with Implausible Industries

Switch

Shenmue analysis at www.phantomriverstone.com
Joined
Jul 28, 2018
Location
Japan
"The speed and direction of the wind on the grass matches that of the clouds in the sky".

Yep, that's Shenmue!! :D

This was a fantastic read, thanks for this Switch!
 
The boat from Bailu to Niawou part sounded really interesting. From the sounds of it, it was nearly done and got abandoned late on. Make it dlc, Yu... :LOL:

I would have liked to have known more about Baisha. Specifically, how early into production they decided it wasn't going to be in the game.

Thanks for this, it was a great read.
 
'DM: Excite QTE. Dumb choice, but I made an early prototype of it and was really happy with the way the rhythm turned out.'

This. Excite QTE 3 is the first one I actually like playing. The softer sound effects, visuals and the rhythm make it so soothing when I'm in the zone.

Excellent read! Thanks so much @Switch !!
 
First meeting was pretty funny. We were taken to an office expecting to meet with some producers or something and just talk money and schedules. Instead we walked into a room with just a smiling Yu Suzuki who proceeded to gush excitedly about the project’s future, past, and how exciting it was for Shenmue to be coming back!
Lmao, that is just adorable. Thanks Switch, great interview all around. I was really (pleasantly) surprised to find they had a history with the series, and one in particular was an outright fan who played both games previously.
 
This interview helps to curb some of my cynicism regarding the future of Shenmue as it paints Suzuki in a really good light as someone who still has a lot of passion and earnest for the series after all these years.

It was a good interview, focused more on the technical side but that makes sense given their roles. I particularly liked the shader since he was a previous fan. It must of been amazing to be able to see the concept art and plans for Shenmue 3 so early.

I'm a little bummed that the question I submitted wasn't asked but I'll get over it lol.
 
A big thank you to @Switch for conducting this interview.

A couple of neat nuggets I want to highlight-

I also remember seeing a photocopy of an early layout drawing of Bailu Village, dated either 1999 or 2000. The fact that this drawing already existed so long ago gave me great confidence in Suzuki-san’s vision for the game.

I would love to see early layout of Bailu village and how it compared to what we got in Shenmue 3. May put to rest a lot of conjecture many of us fans have about its remoteness and potential changes to ‘gamify’ the space.

The basic drafts for pretty much everything in the game were done before production started, but of course quite a lot changed once full production got going.

Wish he had gone in more detail about what changes occurred once production started.

One fun little thing I worked on was the eye shaders. Since the art style isn’t fully realistic, I added some tiny fake white highlights on the surface. As development continued, more and more functionality was added to these highlights. First of all, they fade out at a certain distance, otherwise they would look strange and appear too bright.

Interesting hearing care and effort that went into that when I think of John’s tweet


Again informative and hope we can get more details about production and development of Shenmue 3 in the future!
 
Thanks for all the great feedback! I'm happy to see all the interest. The guys at Implausible have been under a really tight project schedule but they made the time to give as much detail as they could.

I'm a little bummed that the question I submitted wasn't asked but I'll get over it lol.
Sorry to hear that! It may have been in the submitted questions but unfortunately not all of them were able to be answered. Still, I think we ended up with a nice selection.
 
Kind of unrelated to shenmue, but these guys just released their own game. Might be worth supporting. Not really my kind of game but I feel like showing them some love while I restlessly wait for Shenmue 4. Looks like it’s on Gamepass.


 
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