Ys Net and Deep Silver announced today that they have teamed up together and that the partnership will see Shenmue III for PC and PS4 published by Deep Silver.
Yu Suzuki, CEO of Ys Net, commented about the partnership, saying…
“ “I am very pleased to secure this global partnership with Deep Silver, which is comprised of incredible men and women who have a deep passion for bringing Japanese titles to the rest of the world. Throughout this process, Deep Silver has expressed a deep passion for Japanese games, the Shenmue franchise and its fans—this gives me further confidence in Shenmue III and that we have found the best partner possible.”
The deal will see Deep Silver handling the publishing and distribution of the game when it launches in the second half of 2018.
Shenmue III will also be in attendance at this year’s GamesCom in Cologne, Germany.
The game was originally Kickstarted to the tune of $6 million back in 2015. An undisclosed amount is also being provided by Sony for the development of the game. Suzuki-san had mentioned that he would need about $10 million to truly bring the game to life as he had envisioned.
I imagine with the Unreal Engine 4 and the Blueprints at their disposal, they shouldn’t have any troubles with the gameplay mechanics or construction of any white box prototyping. For the old Dreamcast outings tech and R&D were a big problem and a roadblock for development back in the day. The Unreal Engine cuts all of that right out of the equation.
The $100 million that Sega sunk into the Shenmue franchise is no longer required to make something functionally unique and diverse. The only question is how much is being spent on the voice acting? Will they attempt to mirror the B-movie style acting from the first two games? Or will they attempt to bring in high-quality talent like Troy Baker, Matt Mercer or Nolan North to make it sound more legitimate?
Anyway, expect to see more of Shenmue III at GamesCom. The official hype train will likely get underway during this year’s Paris Games Week.
