Shenmue 3 announced at E3 2015 as a Kickstarter project

If there's one theme to Sony's pre-E3 2015 conference, it might be making dreams come true. No, it's that Dreams game from Media Molecule. Among other things, Sony has revealed The Last Guardian, which will finally launch in 2016, hopefully. It has also finally given in to fans and will make, or rather remake, Final Fantasy VII as a first-class PS4 port. And now, it's going to make Shenmue 3 a reality. Well, sort of. What Sony and game creator Yu Suzuki actually announced is the launch of the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter campaign.

When Shenmue launched back in 1999 on the Sega Dreamcast, it was a piioneer in some things that we take for granted these days. Back then, an open world, nonlinear gameplay was almost unheard of. Suffice it to say, the game became a hit and was quickly followed by a sequel in 2001 for the Dreamcast and the first Xbox. Yu Suzuki says that, since then, he has always been asked when Shenmue 3 would arrive. Now it will, and on a completely different platform.

Shenmue 3 will begin where the second game left off, with protagonist Ryo on his way to Hong Kong to avenge his father's murder. Of course, the story won't be as straightforward and, if the promise of continuing legacy of the series will be followed, it will have many paths available for players to take. New characters will be introduced, particularly a new female companion who claims that their meeting was fated.

If the game is funded, Shenmue 3 will be released for both PS4 and PC, utilizing the Unreal 4 engine to make that happen. Considering they announced it in front of a hungry E3 crowd, that is pretty much good as gold. As of this writing, the campaign has passed $1,500,000 of the $2 million goal. And that's less than 24 hours. We're expecting Kickstarter records to be broken once again.

Some might complain about this particular use of Kickstarter by a well-known name that could have gotten funding from, say Sony. This is actually the second Kickstarter that Sony has publicly endorsed, with Bloodstained from Castlevania creator Koji "IGA" Igarashi, which just recently become the most funded computer game on Kickstarter. It could be that Sony didn't really feel the game would be up to its criteria for publishing a game. But one reason that Suzuki does promote, which is mostly true for all crowdfunded games, is that this path takes them closer to what gamers and customers want. Give the burning reception the campaign is getting, he was probably right.

SOURCE: Sony, Kickstarter