10 Insanely Cool Ways Video Games Were Revealed
9. We, The People - Shenmue III
Just shy of two decades after the release of the series' second installment, Shenmue III, a bona fide myth in gaming circles akin to Half-Life 3 (still waiting on that one, by the way), became a real, playable video game on PlayStation 4. To put how long fans of Ryo Hazuki's story were forced to wait for the sequel into perspective, Shenmue II was released on a console that had its heyday before the turn of the millennium and went defunct in 2001.
The original Xbox didn't even exist yet.
Due to the prolonged hiatus and status, even at the height of its popularity, as having a niche appeal, creator Yu Suzuki (no doubt weary of being asked when the third game would hit shelves) pursued novel means to make Ryo's return a reality. Using the stage at Sony's 2015 E3 conference to spread his message, the former Sega dev appealed to fans everywhere to help fund the collective dream of Shenmue III through crowdfunding. The response was positively explosive.
Somewhat anticlimactically, Suzuki — intentionally wanting his third child to be in keeping with early 2000s game design philosophy — would deliver on the dream four years later, only for review scores to return a near-unanimous verdict of average. Guess Shenmue IV is off the table, then.