Fans let out a collective squeal of joy when Shenmue 3 was announced at Sony’s E3 conference and then rushed to pledge their support on Kickstarter. In just three hours, the campaign has raised more than $1.36 million, more than half of its $2 million goal, from about 16,000 backers.
That means Shenmue 3, the long-awaited sequel to the series originally created for the Sega Dreamcast, is one of most quickly funded video games ever on Kickstarter, if not the speediest (TechCrunch has reached out to the crowdfunding platform to see where the project stands). Pledges that come with a copy of the game start at $29 for a PC or PS4 version.
It’s not the fastest Kickstarter campaign to reach $1 million though—that record belongs to Reaper Miniature Bones II, which scored $3.1 million in just 2.7 hours.
On Kickstarter, Shenmue creator Yu Suzuki said “we are balancing our ambitions for a grand sequel with the pragmatic realities of developing a game of this scale. It will not be easy, but I have dreamed of making this sequel for 14 years—it is time to bring Shenmue back!”
