A trailer appearing to show an unannounced Shenmue sequel has sent fans into a frenzy ahead of this year’s The Game Awards.
The name may not be familiar to younger gamers, but Shenmue long held the record for the largest video game budget ever, while pioneering a whole new world of cinematic, open world adventure – including inventing the QTE series.
The first two installments were released on the Sega Dreamcast in 1999 and 2001 respectively, and more than 15 years later, after the largest crowdfunded game project in Kickstarter history, Shenmue 3 was created.
Unfortunately, Shenmue 3 was a disaster that completely ruined the series’ second chance at life by barely advancing the overarching story an inch. Director Yu Suzuki has expressed interest in making a fourth game, but that has always seemed unlikely… unless this new leak is actually real.
On the Shenmue Dojo Fan Foruma user named Nomura_79 posted an alleged trailer for Shenmue 4, which apparently originally came from the Japanese forum 5ch.
While fans want to believe the trailer is real, like everything else on the internet these days, there are suspicions that it was created using AI. It all looks impressively convincing, but also a bit too good to be true.
“Please don’t be an AI,” reads the top comment on the original Reddit wire. Another added: “If this isn’t real, this is the most impressive, fully fleshed out, AI-generated trailer I’ve ever seen.”
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The trailer is suspiciously long, over four minutes, which would also cost a fortune to show at The Game Awards – if that’s what it’s intended for – where everyone has to pay to show their games.
Strangely enough, Shenmue 3 improved was announced earlier this year at Gamescom for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. It could be possible that this was a test to see what the interest is in the franchise at the moment, but the safest bet is that this is probably fake.
Last year, director Yu Suzuki said in an interview that Shenmue 4 needs a “partner” to become a reality. “We’re not working on it right now,” he told Shenmue Dojo. “It’s still in the planning stages.”
Sega published the first two Shenmue games, and with the company bringing back a bunch of classic franchises, there’s a chance it could invest in a fourth entry.
Either way, it’s likely that many Shenmue fans will form a prayer circle around The Game Awards this year, which takes place in the wee hours of Friday, December 12 in Britain.
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