Shenmue III Will Eat 100GB of Storage When It Drops in 2019

Ever since Shenmue III was announced three years ago, fans of the game franchise have eagerly awaited the conclusion to a story trilogy that first debuted on the Dreamcast nearly 20 years ago. Now the developer has published the list of minimum system requirements for the title. One requirement, in particular, stands out — a minimum 100GB of storage for what’s expected to be a relatively svelte game. Here are the requirements as a whole:

OS: Windows 7, 8, or 10 (64-bit required).CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 (3.4GHz) or better, quad-core or better.RAM: 4GBGPU: GTX 650 Ti or better, 2GB VRAM and DX11 support requiredStorage: 100GB storage required

Broadband internet (most likely to download the game itself) is also required, and the game requires Steam to activate if you’re playing on a PC.

Neither the Core i5 requirement nor the 100GB of storage are entirely groundbreaking in and of themselves. Shenmue III is not the first title we’ve seen that required a quad-core CPU, and games have been bumping up close to 100GB storage requirements for a while, though this is the first title we recall seeing that actually hits triple digits. But what’s a little odd, in this case, is the discrepancy between a game that calls for a quad-core and 100GB of storage as a minimum, while only requiring a GTX 650 Ti and 2GB of VRAM. For reference, the GTX 650 Ti was a midrange Kepler-class GPU back in spring 2013 (its approximate modern equivalent would be the 1050 Ti). Back then, 4GB of RAM for gaming and 2GB of VRAM would’ve likely been recommended requirements as opposed to minimum, but titles from that era were much less likely to spec quad cores as a minimum, and no game from that era ate anything like 100GB of storage.

Shenmue III’s last major trailer release, from August 2017, is embedded above, but the non-existent facial animations and hopefully at least some of the abysmal character animation that we remarked on at the time have reportedly been improved. Both this video (posted about a month after our original story) and this one (posted today, to inform readers that Shenmue III’s Kickstarter backer surveys have begun) are short, but they feature some degree of facial animation.

The game has raised nearly $7M in crowdfunding since it was announced, with an unknown additional amount provided by Sony and other outside investors for various aspects of game development, marketing, and distribution. Yu Suzuki has promised that if the game manages to hit $7M via its Slacker Backer campaign, it’ll include a new AI battle system, which Suzuki describes as follows:

This control system lets you automatically unleash the perfect technique in response to the opponent’s positioning and distance. R&D for this system is based on Yu Suzuki’s concept for players who are not used to fighting games or for those who want a full immersion battle experience. This battle system is highly compatible with the current battle system, and will be implemented upon reaching the stretch goal.

Shenmue III has been pushed back twice since 2015 and is currently expected to be released sometime in 2019.

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