Ever since the reveal of Shenmue III at E3 2015, fans have held high hopes that the first two games in the series, until now consigned to the obsolete Dreamcast and original Xbox, would be remastered for modern consoles. In fact, discussions at Sega were underway even before the Kickstarter campaign for the forthcoming sequel began.
Speaking just hours after the announcement of new console and PC ports of Shenmue I & II, John Clark, Sega Europe’s executive vice president of publishing told IGN that the project has been under discussion internally for several years – but that the announcement of Shemmue III helped Sega Europe to prove there was global demand for the original games.
That said, Clark believes the re-releases would have happened eventually even without the existence of Shenmue III, citing a general increase in global appetite for Japanese games, and for classic Sega IP.
“I think it was inevitable Shenmue I & II was going to come out; the Western market was expanding in its desire for more Japanese content,” he said.
PC releases of Bayonetta and Vanquish were well received, the Yakuza series is more popular than ever, and Clark says the trend in terms of Sega titles began with the 2014 PC release of 2008’s Valkyria Chronicles.
“We have a wishlist [for most-wanted re-releases], and one of the first games that we brought out [from that list] was Valkyria Chronicles. That came out on PC, and the appetite for that game on PC led to it coming out on console as well, and now we see that the franchise is becoming really healthy.” Indeed, a Western release of Valkyria Chronicles 4 is due this fall on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.
“That triggered renewed interest in the West for [Sega’s] Japanese titles, and they started to go to a bigger audience in the West than they had, say, 10 years or 15 years ago,” continued Clark. “It was encouraging for us and for Sega in Japan to see that. I think that influenced and gave us leverage on the kind of titles we could bring out, titles like Shenmue.”
Clark confirmed that the same project development team at Sega Europe responsible for Valkyria Chronicles is leading the Shenmue I & II project. “There are more games on the list, there are more announcements to be made, and we’re just happy that we can bring out Shenmue I & II now.”
As for why the project took so long to come together, Clark said that solving contractual issues was a major factor. “Some of it does come down to the availability of licences and voice actors and things like that, which does sound a little bit corporate, but you do have to go through that. It’s a big project, and there were very many elements to consider.”
Daniel Robson is Chief Editor at IGN Japan. He has never driven a real forklift truck.
