Shenmue 3 finally hits Steam on November 19

Shenmue 3 will launch on Steam on November 19.

The game is scheduled to hit Valve’s marketplace a year after first releasing for PS4 and PC via the Epic Games Store.

“Game and in-game rewards codes will be available for PC version backers who manually selected the Steam opt-in through the survey during the September/October 2019 survey resend period,” reads an update on the game’s Kickstarter page.

“Applicable backers will be able to claim their codes through the ‘Downloads and Download Codes’ section of your survey. Fangamer will send out email notices when the codes are ready a few days prior to release.”

The long-awaited RPG sequel finally arrived in November 2019, to the delight of fans who had been waiting nearly two decades for a new instalment.

However, it seemingly failed to find a significant audience beyond its 70,000 Kickstarter backers. Shenmue 3 debuted at No. 17 on the UK chart and sold just 18,000 copies during its launch week in Japan.

Further reading

Review: Shenmue 3 is the sequel fans have been waiting for

An unabashedly old-school experience designed to be savoured

In February, Shenmue 3 publisher Deep Silver called it “a core niche” game and not a “a mass-market product.”

Director Yu Suzuki told VGC in 2019 that plans for Shenmue 4 would be made easier if sales of the third game were good. However, he added that the future of the series would be more dependent on which partners he could secure.

More recently Suzuki said he still believes Shenmue 4 will happen and that he wants it to appeal to a broader audience than the last game.