Shenmue‘s father says that Epic’s engine is the right choice for Shenmue.

Shenmue III was announced (and since then, crowdfunded) two years ago, and they now use Unreal Engine 4 instead of coding, programming it from scratch. Yu Suzuki was interviewed by Eurogamer at Gamescom, where he said the following:

„Unreal Engine is a great fit for our approach because we can prototype very quickly. To me, this is a valuable feature. In my case, I take on a lot of new challenges and rely on a lot of trial and error. I need to be able to quickly see the results and try out new ideas. I feel that the concept of the Unreal Engine and my approach to developing the game is a good match.” He also talked about that this engine is harder to fine tune on a lower level: „In the case of a game engine like Unreal, however, it’s a kind of ‘black box’ so it’s more challenging to fine tune everything at a lower level. I’m working to find the best way to utilize the engine which means sometimes adjusting the game scenario or plan itself to better accommodate the tools set. Overall, though, I think it’s a really good engine.”

He also said that „you’ll start in a large area in Shenmue III, and it will require some initial loading, but compared to before the loading situation will be much better. It’s much faster now.” Shenmue III is out in the second half of 2018 on PlayStation 4 and PC.

Source: Eurogamer