It shouldn’t come to any surprise at this point, but the highly anticipated third entry in the Shenmue series has been delayed again, this time into 2019.
In a Kickstarter update today, Ys Net announced the delay via Deep Silver:
“Deep Silver today announce that their upcoming release Shenmue III has been moved and will now release in 2019.
The extra time will be used to polish the quality of the game even further, to the high standards it deserves and release the product in the best possible timeframe. ”
Series creator Yu Suzuki also had a message for the backers apologizing for another delay and thanking them for their support.
“To all of our backers, we are very sorry for the delay. After much discussion with our partners, Deep Silver, we have concluded that extending the release will allow us to deliver Shenmue III at its best. We promise to use this time to improve the quality of Shenmue III.
We cannot thank you enough for your enduring support.”
Originally slated to be released at the end of 2017, Suzuki announced in June of that year that Shenmue III would be delayed into the second half of 2018.
Some consolation in the delay is that SEGA recently announced that it would finally release the long-requested Shenmue I and II HD on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC in 2018. A firm release date has not yet been announced.
