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shenmue fans ARE finally getting the Revival they had hoped for with shenmue iii, but it’s not the first Attempt to continue the series since shenmue ii

For over a year after the release of the Xbox version of Shenmue II, there was no news about a potential third instalment in the series, but in the summer of 2004 fans were whipped into frenzy by the announcement of Shenmue Online. This project was announced with a flashy CG trailer showing Joy getting taken captive by Lan Di and his goons, with Ryo and Xiuying mounting a rescue effort eventually aided by online players. Unfortunately, the game stumbled into trouble in mid-2005 with the withdrawal of JC Entertainment, a Korean company that had partnered with Sega on the project. The game re-emerged at the China Joy expo in 2006, with both new and old CG movie scenes and a lengthy look at gameplay, which showed off familiar Hong Kong environments and a revamped battle system. However, the project failed to reach the promised open beta stage, and Shenmue Online was quietly, but ultimately, cancelled.

Yu Suzuki later tried to revive the

Shenmue series outside of Sega. Inspired by the success of casual social games like

Mafia Wars, Suzuki worked with Sunsoft to create the mobile game Shenmue City for Yahoo Games in Japan. Although this was a considerable step down in scale compared to the flagship, cutting-edge nature of the main games, had it been a success, the plan was to use it as a basis to relaunch the series. However, Shenmue City was only active for just over a year, from its September 2010 beta launch to its closure in December 2011.