Shenmue 3’s Delay Was For Extra Polish; November Release Not A Concern

Shenmue 3 is almost here. The unlikely sequel to the innovative series has had a long road until now, but at one point we were actually suppose to get the game earlier. Originally slated for August of this year, the game suffered a delay until this month. Shenmue 3 didn’t seem like a good fit for the holiday season, but its publishers doesn’t seem too worried about it.

In an interview with GamesIndustry, Koch Media (who is the parent company to publisher Deep Silver) CEO Klemens Kundratitz talked about the delay. He said the primary reason for it was to give the game a little extra needed polish. When it came down to the new date, Klemens said there was no concern, saying that this year’s holiday release schedule for other games was much lighter than last year, and sure to be much more so than next year with next generation consoles launching.

“We moved the release date from the end of August to November to give him more time to polish, to make it a high quality experience from the get-go,” says Kundratitz. “Then the fans will decide. From a timing point of view, I’m not too concerned because this year is a light year on big releases. Compared to last year and even what’s coming out next year, I think we’re in for a lighter Christmas period.”

While there was some pretty big games this month with Death Stranding, Star Wars and Pokemon, he’s not too far off the mark in that it seems like a more quieter holiday season as well. Hopefully, that’ll help Shenmue 3 on November 19th.