The original Shenmue, and Shenmue 2, released a very long time ago now- and you would think that with the impending release of Shenmue 3 next year, Sega would be looking at re-releasing or remaking those games, to generate awareness of the brand again, and to catch new fans up on the story before they dive into the third one, which is slated to be the conclusion to the story anyway.
However, while the publisher told fans in May that it was looking at a re-release for Shenmue and Shenmue 2, as of right now, there doesn’t seem to be much movement on that front. Speaking to MCV UK, Sega’s European boss Jurgen Post discussed the state of Shenmue re-releases at the present moment.
“There is definitely a desire [to go back to our classic games],” Post said. “Even online, people are constantly talking about products they would like to see come back, and Shenmue 1 and 2 are probably in the top two places. We are looking into it. It is an old IP, it is a beloved IP – and not just by consumers, but also within Sega, we have people saying that if we could do Shenmue 1 and 2 all over again, we’d definitely go for it.
“The issue is that it is a big game. It is a project from many years ago. If we are to do it, we’d want to do a fantastic conversion to the current platforms, and there are a lot of licenses in the game, which were cleared many years ago, so we will need to renegotiate those contracts. We are looking into it. We haven’t given it a green light, but it has our full attention.”
So for now, it doesn’t start like the project has even entered active development- although it does sound like Sega are at least serious about it. That’s something, I guess.