6 August 2007
Ferry

Shenmue Online cancelled, Shenmue 3 not happening as Sega’s franchise dies

Back in February 2006, Shenmue creator and veteran game designer Yu Suzuki, confirmed that the mysterious Shenmue MMO venture Shenmue Online (that was announced in 2004) was still in development: “The story will be finished through games.” Later that year at the China Joy 2006 game event Sega unveiled new info in an Shenmue Online trailer and gameplay videos that you can watch below.

Sadly that’s the last we’ll see of any Shenmue games, since Shenmue Online has been canceled and will more than likely never see another sequel like Shenmue 3. Seganerds reports that ever since the game didn’t show up at China Joy 2007 it’s continued development has been questioned.

It’s now been confirmed by Kikizo staff saying: “As for Shenmue, I would have to say at this stage, it is worth forgetting about. If all the fans get any rich relatives together and channel it though Dojo perhaps we could buy rights, hire Suzuki (he’d likely say yes) and independently make the game under license from Sega at no risk to them. That is the only way it will get made at this stage I think.”

The following words must’ve been really hard for the Shenmue fans to say: “To clarify, what I meant was I wanted to get clarification on something I heard a couple of days ago, which is that yes, Shenmue Online is f*cked and Suzuki’s status is, once again, up in the air, which counts Shenmue III totally out of the picture right now. This is confirmed, it seems.”

Wow double-sad news! Now I have to go tell some friends who are fans of Shenmue and Shenmue II.

Shenmue Online 2006 video Part 1:

Shenmue Online 2006 video Part 2:

Full video of Shenmue Online originally found at Ameba.

6 August 2007 11:41
tim

uh shemue 3 is listed to be shown at tgs … is it is not dead

6 August 2007 12:03
supadupagama

Tim, sorry to break your Shenmue-loving heart, but that was just a cruel internet joke. It’s not yet known what games will appear at TGS this year, let alone a list being officially published.

7 August 2007 09:07
The Central Scutinizer

“…Remember that day… when the black car drove by… yes, the day it rained…”

Gee, I’ll really MISS all that great dialogue and… WALKING for miles.

8 August 2007 06:43
Chris

All I want to ask is, WHAT is the problem Suzuki? You’ve had long enough, the game is finished enough to show videos and screenshots, so WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM? Just get it f*cking finished.

8 August 2007 08:33
matt

just finish the game

13 August 2007 13:26
Sanosuke

And game companies wonder why gamers are tired of investing in a series only to be screwed over later by the developers/publishers?
Someone had a serious lapse in judgement by cancelling Shenmue II on the Dreamcast and moving to the FPS Box. Knock-Knock Sega…Marketing Intelligence? Are the dialogue hating, non reading ADHD Halo boys gonna embrace Ryo Hazuki? Not likely. With Dreamcast denied, the game should’ve jumped to the PS2 or the Cube.
Since we’re not getting the game obviously, at least let us know how the story, which you started and have all of the Shenmue fans interested in…ENDS!!!

10 September 2007 17:27
robert

will shenmue3 come on playstation3

14 September 2007 08:53
Steve

Whatever problems there are I’m sure it will come out eventually, with the amount of peolple that are interested it would be silly not to release it. It would make a huge profit. I just hope I can be patient enough.

18 September 2007 08:56
zach

I worked on the Shenmue online project in Shanghai at Interserv. The game had so many problems, from environment models, to 3d motion capture cleanup, to it’s mini-games. It was a real-time fighting game forced onto a online game, so you can imagine how fun it would be with lag. with the mocap it ended up with interserv using interns to help with the editing and skinning. There was just so many characters that needed skinning, and rigging, and then Sega decided to change the models, which resulted in all the characters needed to be re-skinned with max 5. hahah rofl.

Two words that described the failure of this game: ” POOR PREPRODUCTION”. You know, garbage in, garbage out, or like my art instructor said back in art college, ” if you don’t get the preproduction down right, you’re just polishing a turd.”

26 September 2007 06:57
Chris

has anyone heard of a dynasty warriors online game that’s very much similar to the console games but with some aspects like wow i think if the game took a twist like this then it would be able to least pull it off sure its not true shenmue but this would help with the world through an online prespective check out youtube for this.

And ill just say as another option make the thing a novel least so the fans can buy the book and finsh the story, like i always say “dont start something you cant finsh!” we need closure