After years of delays, Shenmue III is finally about to come out in November. First delayed in 2017 to wait for new technology that would allow advanced expressions and later delayed in 2018 to 2019 in order to polish the game, Shenmue III will finally become a reality later this year, but game director Yu Suzuki wishes he could have done more with the game.
“I’ve been making games since 1983 and there wasn’t once where I could do everything I wanted,” Suzuki said in an interview with GameSpot. “All the time, it’s about half of the things I wanted to do. But since I could complete at least half of it, I am happy. If I manage to do everything 100%, I won’t have anything to do next.”
Suzuki added that the issue is, “when you make a game … if you put everything you want in, you can put a lot in it,” though he adds that “the risk gets bigger because it’s a completely new game.”
In the case of Shenmue III, Suzuki and his team “had to pare down a little bit on innovation, and it’s more a game I made for the fans of the series. But there are still new things in it.”
It’s difficult to understand how to take this. On the one hand, it’s good to know that Suzuki continually wants to improve and elevate game genres with new game mechanics. However, as he stated, it won’t necessarily be the same game and, thus, may be a disappoint to fans looking for a certain package.
On the other hand, it begs the question of what was potentially cut from the game. While it can be wholly appreciated that Suzuki wanted to deliver a love letter to the fans who backed Shenmue III, there may have been things cut from the game that could have shaped its identity for the better.
Regardless of speculation, Suzuki and his team undoubtedly want to deliver a game that exceeds fan expectations and then some. Gamers and Shenmue enthusiasts will know for sure come the game’s release date of November 19th, 2019 on PC and PlayStation 4.
