After Shenmue III’s new E3 trailer went live, the game’s Kickstarter page revealed that it is now exclusive to the Epic Games Store.
If you watched the Shenmue III presentation on the PC Gaming Show at E3, you might have noticed something missing from the trailer — the Steam logo. It turns out there’s a good reason for that. As Shenmue III’s Kickstarter page has confirmed, the game is now an Epic Games Store exclusive. At the time of the campaign, backers were able to select a Steam key as a reward. There’s no word yet as to how the game will be delivered to those backers.
A new message was added to the page just as the trailer went live:
We are happy to announce that Shenmue III for PC will be an Epic Games Store exclusive. Development for Shenmue III has been moving forward using Unreal Engine and the support we have received from Epic has been excellent. But most importantly, in looking for the most enjoyable experience on PC, it was decided together with Deep Silver after much discussion that the Epic Games Store would be the best distribution platform option.
Likely anticipating the blowback from the announcement, it also includes a link to developer Deep Silver’s customer support page.
The reception from backers was about what you would expect, with dozens of comments criticizing the decision or demanding refunds. Deep Silver has yet to respond directly, but we’ll be following this story as it develops.
