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It's been a full year since Yu Suzuki announced the Kickstarter for the long-fabled Shenmue III at Sony's E3 press conference in 2015. So it's about time that Suzuki-san provide us all with an update on progress that has been made thus far, and what the team in Tokyo, Japan has been doing with the $6.3 million they secured from the campaign.
And, well, it's progressing slowly. In a short video update posted on the game's official Kickstarter page, Suzuki reports that they are slowly bringing in new team members and that they have been building on top of an early prototype build that was made six months ago.
They're testing simple battles and conversations on Unreal Engine 4 by using characters from Shenmue 2, and are steadily working on battle animations and facial expressions.
And that's about it for specifics. The video shows off much of the concept art in the game, showing off the quaint rural Chinese village that will likely be one of the major starting areas. This suggests that the third installment will follow immediately after the end of Shenmue II which took place in the mountains of Guilin.
As a part of the update, the development team admits that surveys, which will confirm Kickstarter reward details and platform choice, have not been sent yet and no dates have been set yet for when they will be sent.