Source: seganerds.com
What with recent talk of people wondering where Shenmue 3 was, I started wondering myself… but wondering more of what ever happened to Shenmue Online.
What was meant to be a big leap for Sega into the ‘Massive Multiplayer’ scene on the PC, the dream seemed to fizzle out though and many believe (as I do) the project was swapped from Shenmue Online to the Matrix Online.
Though Sega never really confirmed nor denied such rumours it certainly seemed to be that way. I mean Sega want to create a MMORPG style game and believe Shenmue could make a fun, fresh approach to the scene- rather than shooting or sword based games, having martial arts as the main choice of combat. Then reports issued (from Sega themselves) that they want Shenmue Online to fuse realistic combat (as seen in the Dreamcast Shenmue titles) with a more fantasy style with magic. Then nothing more was heard about the game- but at E3 2004 Sega dropped a huge ‘exclusive’ (their ‘Segaton’ announcement) -They were to develop a Matrix based Online multiplayer title. Needless to say the news wasn’t as huge as fans had hoped- many assumed Sega would be announcing their comeback into the hardware business or something equally important.
I hope you can see the link between the two games – Shenmue with added mystical powers in combat…. to The Matrix. A world that has already been laid out to the masses and everyone know the score- mixing guns with impressive martial arts and the ability to ‘warp’ the world, so one can jump over buildings, run up walls, freeze in mid-air or even fly. Some could say Sega made a good decision choosing to opt for the Matrix- as it is/ was a huge success and even though Shenmue is held with high regard, very few outside the gaming world really knew about it.
Not necessarily a good decision after all, many would say. The Matrix Online wasn’t quite the huge success Sega had hoped (probably because many were annoyed by how rubbish the last film was) and at the same time Sega had managed to annoy the main stream Shenmue and Dreamcast fans (of which there are quite a lot).
So perhaps Sega would have been better off releasing their original project of Shenmue Online. Sspecially seeing as reports indicated that the game was coming along nicely, with some random images appearing online – along with this magnificent video.
Enjoy.
[Video Source: GoogleVideo - SegaUniverse]
