Ys Net could be preparing a Shenmue 4 announcement possibly to coincide with The Game Awards next week, if a suspicious, off-screen, leaked trailer is to be believed. If it is, Shenmue 4 will apparently arrive in 2026 on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X.
But is the trailer (spotted by PushSquare) to be believed? That is the question. It’s filmed off-screen and only in low resolution, making careful, close inspection impossible. And in a world of fairly convincing AI fakes, and this trailer arising from an unknown and unvalidated source – a YouTube account with six followers and no track-record of accurate game-leaking – people aren’t sure about it.
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But the trailer itself is considerable. It clocks in at just over four minutes and shows a huge chunk of the supposed game, following protagonist Ryo as he goes about various around-the-town jobs, such as washing dishes and arm wrestling, while also learning ancient styles of kung fu.
Given the length of the trailer, I’d assume that, if it were made by AI, we’d see a telltale AI slip-up – an extra arm appearing from someone’s head, say – in that time. But I didn’t see anything of that kind. Moreover, the trailer visually looks consistent with what we saw in Shenmue 3; it’s a very convincing fake if it is one.
Of course, there may be elements of generative AI used in the game even if it does turn out to be real. One area people are particularly scrutinising is a Street Fighter-like fighting game cabinet called Shenmue Fighters – could that be AI generated?
There’s been a strong demand for another Shenmue game. Last year, Shenmue fans rented a billboard in Times Square, no less, to petition series creator Yu Suzuki to “complete his life’s work” and make another game.
Shenmue 3 resurrected the beloved simulation RPG series in 2019, and Martin Robison – a series fan – loved it. “A bewitching time capsule that transports us to late 80s China, and to turn-of-the-century video games,” Martin wrote in his Shenmue 3 review.
