Shenmue's social-gaming installment starts the year by cancelling support
Ill-fated cult series gets another cancellation
Shenmue, Sega's long-dormant open-world adventure, just can't catch a damn break. Fans spent 2011 waiting for a smartphone port of social spinoff Shenmue Gai (aka Shenmue World or Shenmue Town). But Ysnet, the game's developer, quietly announced over the Christmas break that instead of expanding Shenmue Gai onto new platforms, it'll be canceling support for the title.
Above: At least the series' last canonical moment was a pretty one
The free-play title wasn't the canonical continuation fans have been waiting for since Shenmue II's release in 2001, but instead focused on telling new stories within the first game's home area of Yokosuka. However, the Suzuki-produced title had been the first glimpse of a new Shenmue anything for some time, and the creator's initial promise was that the game might one day be able to host the series' long-absent concluding chapters. The fate of those chapters is once more uncertain, but if nothing else Shenmue fans will always have their fan fiction.
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
Stellar Blade director "grew up too poor to afford" a PS1, but when he finally got one in college, Ridge Racer and Final Fantasy inspired him to make games
Oh, that's why the Stellar Blade devs were terrified by demo players: one fan's spent "about 60 hours" maxing Eve's skill tree before the action RPG is even out