Shenmue IV Namedropped by Shenmue III Contributor

The Shenmue franchise, from its inception, was always intended as a multi-chapter series. In a 2015 AMA interview on Reddit, series creator Yu Suzuki claimed a total of 11 chapters comprised the Shenmue story.

“Over the past 14 years I originally planned for there to 4 or five games to the series,” Suzuki explained to fans. “If at all possible, I would still like to realize the full story of 11 chapters.”

That interview occurred after Shenmue III was part of a showstopping surprise announcement at E3 that year, which broke crowdfunding records, and culminated in the release of Shenmue III last November.

But now at least one contributor to the third installment has hinted that perhaps Suzuki’s full vision could still be realized. In a December 14 post to Facebook citing the dozens of characters they modeled for the game, Gurugram, India-based Lakshya Digital namedropped Shenmue IV specifically in thanking Suzuki for the opportunity to work with him and his company YS Net:

Lakshya congratulates YS Net Inc. on the release of Shenmue III. It was an honour for Lakshya to work on this iconic game. Many lucky ones from Lakshya got the opportunity to create 83 characters over a period of almost one year. It is thanks to the confidence placed in us by Yu Suzuki san, CEO, YS Net Inc, and the entire team, that we could be true partners and provide effective solutions to deliver high quality content at the best value. We look forward to working on Shenmue IV very soon!

No one knows for sure if that last sentence was written seriously or in jest. To be sure, Shenmue IV is also namedropped in a line at the end of the credits of Shenmue III allegedly from Suzuki, albeit in much less certain terms:

For as long as there are those who wish to see Shenmue live on, I will never give up on my own personal journey to complete its story.

As with Shenmue III, the Shenmue story is with you.

I sincerely hope that, together, we can continue to spin the tale of Ryo and his adventures in Shenmue IV.

While the words don’t constitute a confirmation, it could be an indication of at least some interest among several stakeholders to continue the path toward finishing the story of Shenmue. We’re certainly very far away from anything concrete there, but we’ll be here should anything significant arise.