ININ Games seems to make big promises now that they have picked up the publishing rights to Shenmue III.
We announced the transfer of publishing rights, from Yu Suzuki’s Ys Net to ININ Games, last week. Shortly after that announcement, ININ Games Head of Publishing Dennis K. Mendel made this post on LinkedIn:
“Now it’s official – the beginning of a new chapter for Shenmue III!
Just in time for the 25th anniversary of the Shenmue series and the 5th anniversary of Shenmue III, the publishing rights have been transferred to ININ Games.
Together with legendary Yu Suzuki and his team we have exciting plans to celebrate these anniversaries and there will be more good news in the future.
For me as a fan of the series and of Yu san’s works, this is an immense honor and also a great privilege. Words cannot express how much this means to me!
Let’s make sure that this beloved series continues to thrive and will continue to inspire future generations just as much as it has inspired us who grew up with Dreamcast.”
As we explained last week, ININ Games secured this contract after earning Suzuki’s trust as the publisher of Ys Net’s second game, Air Twister. But it seems we do need to address something that we hadn’t addressed then.
Now, some of you may already know this, but Ys Net and ININ didn’t get the rights to the Shenmue franchise as a whole. Sega still owns Shenmue 1 & 2, as you can confirm that they are the publisher in the Steam listing for both games.
Sega and Yu Suzuki seem to have made a special arrangement, perhaps possible only because of Suzuki’s relationship with the company. Suzuki may have given up in convincing Sega to put their own money into a Shenmue revival. But he still had enough influence in the company to allow him to make Shenmue III, and maybe other Shenmue games, if he can pull it off.
Mendel didn’t quite confirm that they would be making a Shenmue IV, but maybe it’s too early to make such promises. We can imagine that their first order of business would be to make new versions of the game to new platforms.
We can’t speak to whether they will make remasters, or full-on remakes, but we can see ININ taking an interest in bringing Shenmue III to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. ININ has also done a lot of business on Nintendo Switch, so they may also be thinking about bringing it to Nintendo’s platforms one way or another.
And maybe ININ would take an interest in making a DRM-free release for platforms like GOG, or flip the other side to cloud gaming via Nvidia GeForce Now or Amazon Luna. But beyond adding platforms, we would imagine ININ would work with Suzuki to make an improved version of the game, that could better realize his vision, and maybe, just maybe, make some QOL and game design improvements to better appeal to newer gamers.
So maybe one could argue that ININ and Yu Suzuki still has a lot of work to do before they even think about making a Shenmue IV. They could proverbially earn the right to make that sequel to the gamers, by successfully winning them over with an improved Shenmue III. As CD Projekt RED, Hello Games, and many others learned, gamers still root for the underdog, and they will cheer for a successful comeback. But the most exciting part is the hardest part, and it starts here.
