Yu Suzuki's Post-WePlay Travelogue

[yuc02]

Apparently he's been traveling near Shanghai for work... Shenmue 4 research?

 

[mjqjazzbar]

Amazing. What does the text say?

 

[You Arcade]

Here's a direct link to the post:

https://www.weibo.com/6344991717/Ik6caCEUk

 

[mjqjazzbar]

Those are some pretty specific shots.

 

[yuc02]

Taking photos of photographers again...

 

[deathofaninja]

So this is where his attention to detail comes from.

 

[jsh020]

This would be an awesome location for the game, but after 3 I hope that aside from the wall section, that they would make this primarily the only setting of the game after that and just go all in on fleshing it out.

 

[yuc02]

He went to a Chinese water town, of which there are several near Shanghai. They're similar to this one below (which I went in 2016 called Wuzhen 乌镇）

 

[高野和泉]

OMG, Just announce S4 already YU.

 

[Revan]

Wow! He’s doing research already!

Hmm. Water towns. Suzhou (one of his many original planned locations) might crop up in Shenmue 4?

 

[jsh020]

This area is gorgeous, i hope if this is where they do shenmue 4 it'd be alot more intimate than the areas of 3, I like how compact and small alot of these little alleys are, if they could maybe improve the control scheme for ryo so he doesnt get constantly caught on the environment id love to travel through something like this in a 4th game.

 

[Crimson]

This area is gorgeous, i hope if this is where they do shenmue 4 it'd be alot more intimate than the areas of 3, I like how compact and small alot of these little alleys are, if they could maybe improve the control scheme for ryo so he doesnt get constantly caught on the environment id love to travel through something like this in a 4th game.

Exactly that! :) Anyway he's really dedicated...

 

[scooterusa]

Oh snapppp

 

[Reprise]

Right, I'm taking that as Shenmue 4 is confirmed. It's happening guys!

 

[Reprise]

 

[MJC The Great]

Wow, very interesting but can we afford to get excited and assume this is Shenmue IV research when the third game hasn't been very successful? I wonder which publisher would pick it up or perhaps it would go to crowdfunding again. Despite being able to reuse existing game assets, I really feel it needs a larger budget and more focus on moving the overall story further.

 

[ComfyBeats]

Wow, very interesting but can we afford to get excited and assume this is Shenmue IV research when the third game hasn't been very successful? I wonder which publisher would pick it up or perhaps it would go to crowdfunding again. Despite being able to reuse existing game assets, I really feel it needs a larger budget and more focus on moving the overall story further.

I guess you could've just written Shenmue 3 as the training/filler arc of the series, but I'm sure there's other publisher's he's probably looking at since his name still carries some weight. It's that or he'll look towards outside investors and have Ysnet self publish the game.

 

[Sh3ppy]

It’s almost impossible not to get severely excited by seeing these photos.

 

[darksniper]

Wow, very interesting but can we afford to get excited and assume this is Shenmue IV research when the third game hasn't been very successful? I wonder which publisher would pick it up or perhaps it would go to crowdfunding again. Despite being able to reuse existing game assets, I really feel it needs a larger budget and more focus on moving the overall story further.

This is definitely Shenmue IV research. I can't see any reason for YS to be traveling around in China for leisure. Especially right after the release of Shenmue III. I think the purpose of Shenmue III was simply to get Ryo out that cave and get to know Shenhua on a deeper level. Wouldn't be surprised if they backloaded the budget to get Shenmue IV upstarted.

 

[Lan Di-sama]

I'll drop a bit of realism here - Suzuki was in China anyway for the WePlay event. It's seems sensible that he'd take the opportunity to sight see and research regardless of Shenmue's future. But, I hope this indicates optimism on his part.