A new Shenmue trailer released today asks a simple question: What is Shenmue? Don't feel bad if you don't know the answer, because the first two games in the series were never released for PC. (They're also pretty old: The original came out in 1998.) But the third game in the series is coming our way at some point, and earlier this year Sega announced that Shenmue 1 and 2 are being remastered for PC. They're out this month, so this trailer's a bit of a refresher.
The new trailer introduces the game's headline characters, including Ryo Hazuki, a brooding, jiu-jitsu-powered teenager who's out to get the guy who murdered his father; Lan Di, the guy he's out to get; a mysterious woman named Shenhua Ling, whose destiny is intertwined with Ryo's; and Ren, a gang leader who may or may not be trustworthy. There's also a cat.
The trailer is really more about the "who" than the "what" of Shenmue, but fortunately Sega ran down the basics of the game's story in a separate trailer released last week.
Shenmue 1 and 2 will be out on August 21, and are available for pre-purchase now on Steam for $27/£23/€32.
Shenmue 3, unfortunately, still doesn't have a release date: It had been slated for release in the second half of this year but in May, publisher Deep Silver pushed it into 2019. On the upside, it recently surpassed $7 million in crowdfunding, which will enable the addition of an assisted combat option.
