Shenmue 3 Will Launch On Steam in the Future, According to FAQ

Those of you that were planning to play Shenmue 3 on Steam can breathe a sigh of relief. Kinda. Sorta. After the mess following the announcement that the PC version will be an Epic Store exclusive, they’ve updated the FAQ on the game’s website. Now, it promises that Shenmue 3 will launch on Steam “in the future.” Whatever that might mean.

So, yeah, like we’ve covered in our previous article on Shenmue 3, the tea is that the game will be an Epic Games Store exclusive. And, sure enough, fans, especially backers on Kickstarter, are mad. Very, very mad. And, well, I get where they’re coming from. They were expecting the game to launch on Steam, even though no real direct promises have been made. Well, according to the Shenmue 3 FAQ, it will indeed launch on Steam “in the future.” That’s about as vague as it can get, but that’s all we have for now.

But, what does that mean for Shenmue 3 on PC? Well, if we’re going by experience so far, the common duration of Epic Store exclusives is one year. So, if that ends up being the case here, you won’t be able to play Shenmue 3 via Steam until November 2020. We’ll see what happens. What we do know for certain is that the publisher won’t be offering refunds, according to Destructoid. The announcement reads: “We apologize for the sudden change in platform, however, refunds will not be granted for this change. We thank you for your support and look forward to delivering the Shenmue experience fans everywhere have been waiting so long for.”

Shenmue 3 is coming out on November 19th, 2019. It’ll be available on PlayStation 4 and PC. There have been some rumors of an Xbox port, but we can’t anything for certain just yet. This is the first new entry in the Shenmue franchise since 2001. It’s been quite the wait.