Shenmue 1 & 2 HD Remaster May Be in the Works

According to a source from Atlus USA, there is reportedly a Shenmue and Shenmue 2 HD Remaster currently in the works and are both scheduled for a 2017 launch.

It seems that the third installment of Shenmue might not be the only title from the franchise that's set to launch this year. In a new report from Rice Digital, a trusted source close to Atlus USA revealed that there apparently is an HD remaster of Shenmue and Shenmue 2 in the works, and both titles are supposedly scheduled for release later this year on PC. The reported plan was to release both HD remasters at the same time as a lead-in for the release of Shenmue 3, which is rumored to be postponed to 2018.

There hasn't been an official statement regarding the supposed Shenmue 1 and 2 HD remasters at the time of writing, but this won't come as a surprise to fans as this isn't the first time these rumors have come up. Speculation about these potential re-releases started 10 months ago when it was reported that Sega were interested in remastering Shenmue, though nothing final came out of it. However, the rumors started again just two months ago when Sega of Europe registered a pair of online domain names, both of which pointed to a supposed Shenmue HD remaster.

Unless these rumors get officially confirmed or denied by Sega, it is perhaps wise to take everything with a big grain of salt. With that being said, a remastered re-release of the first two Shenmue games could be vital to the overall success of the upcoming third installment.

Although Shenmue 3 is among Kickstarter's most successful video game projects thanks to the support of long-time fans, 16 years would have passed between the second game and the upcoming third game, which means that newcomers to the series would be unaware of the events that have occurred so far. Given the serialized nature of Shenmue's story, it would be in everyone's favor for the re-release of the first two games in order to not only reacquaint older fans with what's happened so far, but to also draw in a new fanbase.