Did you know Sega’s European branch has a series of videos called Sega Central? They’re really informative, as Dan Sheridan, a community manager with the company, talks about recent releases and answers fan’s questions. You may want to start watching, because this week’s episode had a nice tease in it. It seems Sega is “investigating” HD remasters of Shenmue and Shenmue II .
This came up due to one of those aforementioned fan questions. A fan named Peter Wilson wanted to know if the Shenmue games would ever receive remasters. You can see his question and Sheridan’s response at the 4:45 mark in the YouTube video below.
Or, if you’d rather read it, here’s Sheridan’s response, “With regards to Shenmue I and II HD , of course we would love to release these tomorrow. Sadly, it’s not as simple as porting the games to current platforms as we will need to ensure that any HD remaster lives up to the quality of the original titles. And with games as immersive as Shenmue I and II , there are further complications from licensed products that were included in the original games. That said, we’d love to do it and are currently investigating how to make it a reality.” So Sega is into the idea, but given the nature of the games, making it happen isn’t as easy as, say, Valkyria Chronicles Remastered .
The timing would be perfect in a year or so. After all, Shenmue III was successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter. It’s allegedly going to be released in December 2017. Making sure pretty versions of the two games that led up to it were also available on the PlayStation 4 and PC would be pretty sweet. Make this dream a reality, Sega!
Source: YouTube