Ren & Lan Di original English voice actors return for Shenmue III mod

I’m sure as everyone knows, I am a gigantic Shenmue fan. After 15 years of waiting, I was finally able to say I played Shenmue III. If you guys are curious on my thoughts, check out our review of the game.

While I did enjoy Shenmue III, I was disappointed to hear different voice actors for some of the characters I fell in love with in the first game. The third installment had a feature where you could call up your old friends and catch up. You can immediately tell Ren, Nozomi, Tom, and Fuku-san had unfamiliar voices.

Ryo Hazuki voice actor Corey Marshall has stated it was due to budget limitations and the need to be in the Los Angeles area. Because Ren (Guizhang, Fuku-san) voice actor Eric Kelso was in Japan, the stars did not align for the opportunity. Fan site Shenmue Dojo understood how missed his voice was and decided to take matters into their own hands.

Last Sunday, the Dojo officially revealed a new mod for Shenmue III‘s PC version. In the mod, both Lan Di and Ren’s voice actors were replaced with their original English actors. In the video above you can hear Ren (Eric Kelso) and Lan Di (Paul Lucas) as you remembered them. Here’s their official statement:

Once again due to the passion of the fans Eric returns to reprise his role via a downloadable fan made mod for Shenmue 3 on PC. The mod is extremely easy to install and it will replace the current voice files for Ren (voiced by Greg Chun) with Eric’s new lines!

As eagle eyed (and eared) viewers would notice from the above trailer…Paul Lucas has also reprised his role as Shenmue’s main villain Lan Di! This is incredible to see both Eric and Paul reprise their original characters, bringing back the character to Ren and Lan Di, that perhaps was lost for die hard Shenmue fans used to their original voice talent!

Shenmue Dojo

The mod is fairly easy to install. The Dojo made an official thread to show you how to get it working.

We have interviewed both Paul and Erik in the past, and they are great people. Check out our interview with the main cast of Shenmue if you’re bored. It definitely gave me a trip down memory lane!