Shenmue fans, and gamers hoping to find out what all the fuss is about before Shenmue III drops, may have something new to look forward to. SEGA has registered two new domains, ShenmueHD.com and ShenmueRemastered.com. With both currently returning a blank page, sadly, nothing else is known about the websites.
Shenmue Dojo noticed the pair of domain registrations. On their own, these registrations by no means guarantee that SEGA will remaster the original Shenmue games. While SEGA could be actively working on a remastered game and plans to release information using those websites, SEGA could also just be deliberating if such a game is a worthy investment and registered the domain names on the off-chance the project receives the green-light. The publisher could even have just registered the domains for the sake of reserving them. Until SEGA officially announces a Shenmue HD remaster or states that there will be none, we have no way of knowing why SEGA registered the names.
The first Shenmue game released in 2000 for the Sega Dreamcast and received praise from gamers and critics alike. The game follows Ryo Hazuki on a quest to avenge the death of his father. The sequel came out one year later and was as well received as the original. However, Shenmue II sold poorly and SEGA decided against developing a third game. In June of 2015, Yu Suzuki, the writer and director of the original games and founder of development studio Ys Net, launched a Kickstarter campaign to create the long-awaited Shenmue III. Suzuki set the goal at $2,000,000. Not only did the campaign reach its goal in less than nine hours, making it one of the fastest Kickstarter projects ever, but it ended up raising $6,333,295.
It is too early to tell if anything will come of the ShenmueHD and ShenmueRemastered domains, but it is worth keeping an eye on. If SEGA actually does plan on remastering the original games, Gamespresso will be there to cover the momentous announcement.