Shenmue 3 Video Released as Kickstarter Campaign Deadline Approaches

Watch Ryo and Shenhua in a new cutscene for Shenmue III that was released as its Kickstarter campaign approaches its final stretch.

After shattering its original Kickstarter campaign goal of $2 million, series creator Yu Suzuki and his team have released a short video featuring footage from Shenmue III. This video features Ryo and Shenhua arriving at the Lake of the Lantern Bugs. They watch these ginormous fireflies take flight and are captivated by their beauty. There's not much else to it than that. From a technical standpoint, the footage doesn't look all that impressive, but the game is still in its early stages. While Suzuki has said that the game will be created with money other than Kickstarter's (likely from both Sony and Sega), he promised that none of the fans' funds will go towards Sony. Unfortunately, Suzuki didn't say anything about Sega having a hand in the cookie jar, but we'll just have to have faith.

As of the publication of this article, Shenmue III's Kickstarter campaign has 59 hours to go and has raised nearly $5 million of its $2 million goal. Shenmue III is expected to launch in Dec. 2017 for PlayStation 4 and PC. In terms of stretch goals, the Kickstarter campaign has some relatively weird ones, but they offer some unique insight into the costs of video game design. At $5 million, Baisha Village will be expanded with the character perspective system. After $100K in additional crowdfunding, Portuguese subtitles will be added to the game. Another $900K will expand the game's combat and add a "Advanced Free Battle" system, whatever that means. Likewise, adding ragdoll physics to the combat system will require another half a million bucks after that. Nevertheless, the campaign has been tremendously successful and will likely triple its original goal by the time it finishes.

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