Bad news for fans of the iconic Sega adventure Shenmue, publisher Deep Silver has revealed that the continuation of the journey of Ryu Hazuki as developed by former Sega legend Yu Suzuki’s Ys Net studio is being delayed. Specifically, the game is now delayed by three months.
A message from YS NET & Deep Silver
Shenmue III will now release on 19th November 2019.
Whilst almost ready, the game simply needs a little more refinement before being truly finished. (1/2)
— Official Deep Silver (@deepsilver) June 3, 2019
If you’re not keeping track, this is the third delay for the game. Shenmue III was once due to launch in August 2017, before being delayed the first time to be released in the later half of 2018. After that, the game was delayed again, to then be released some time in 2019. This latest delay signals that development of the title is pretty troubled, and is now suffering a three month delay. But at the very least, it still has a window of November 19th 2019. So it’s not a huge loss.
A three month delay is pretty common in the industry, although that as part of a sustained pattern of delays could spell trouble. Shenmue III will include a ton of different gameplay elements, so it’s a pretty big undertaking. Although fan concerns about the final quality of the game are being taken into account, as Deep Silver and producer Yu Suzuki put it, “We apologise if this disappoints any of our fans, but we hope you can understand that we are endeavouring to ensure the game is polished before release.”
This release window will be very packed with new games, although luckily for the niche Shenmue III, there isn’t a lot of cross-over with the fanbases for games like Death Stranding or Call of Duty Modern Warfare. This means that the Deep Silver title won’t be too drowned by competition.
Fans are no doubt to be disappointed by this news, but they’ve probably learned a fair bit of patience with all of these delays. The game, when it finally does come out, it will launch for PlayStation 4 and PC.
