The games we now know and love as the Shenmue series first became rumoured in late 1998. Then, it was rumoured that a "Virtua Fighter RPG" was being developed by Yu Suzuki and his AM2 team. As the name suggests, it was thought it was to be an RPG featuring the characters of the Virtua Fighter series, with Akira as the main character. Some rumours said it was to take place before some of the characters were born. One of the locations was thought to be the "Tower of Babel" demo shown at the Sega New Challenge Conference before the Dreamcast was launched.

In October of 1998 came the first solid facts about the game. It was in development for three years already and known as "Project Berkley", a name which still hangs around Shenmue (look outside Heartbeats). Yu Suzuki said he wanted to create "a living breathing world".

On the 6th November, Sega held a press conference to 5000 people, confirming Project Berkley. Yu Suzuki described the game as F.R.E.E. an acronym which stands for Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment, as it goes beyond an RPG.

Later that month, on the 28th, Virtua Fighter 3tb was released in Japan with the launch of the Dreamcast. A Project Berkley demo disc was given away free with the game. This contained movies and artwork and revealed the game as Shenmue and to be mostly Chinese.

December 20th marked the Shenmue Premier Event in which most of the game was revealed. An orchestra and soloist provided live versions of the theme music. Game footage was shown and played live and the voice actors were present.

On 1st April 1999, the Shenmue Orchestral Soundtrack was released in Japan.

Following the Tokyo Games Show, Sega held a three day Shenmue Exhibition in Tokyo from May 1st. Gamers could play the game for themselves. Click here to see a picture of this exhibition.

From June 24th, Sega began shipping the "What's Shenmue?" demo disc with all new Dreamcasts in Japan. This contained a playable demo in which you had to chase down the president of Sega in Dobuita and also the face demos from the passport disc.

From August 2nd to 8th, Sega held a "Shenmue Subway Tour" to promote the game further, with plenty of freebies and such.

In the months leading up to the Tokyo Game Show, Sega announced the passport disc extending the game to four discs and a limited edition version of the game. The release date was set at 28th October 1999. At the Tokyo Game Show itself, Shenmue had a huge stand full of screens, freebies, voice actors, and stuff like character busts and objects from the game, such as a forklift truck. To see many pics from the show and more info, head over to our page on the show here.

Shenmue was later announced to be delayed until probably the year 2000 and also a "What's Shenmue? 2" demo disc was announced and then pulled back.

Shenmue: Chapter One - Yokosuka (it was announced that the later 15 chapters would be released at a later date over many games) finally shipped in Japan on the 29th December 1999. However, the lucky people (over 100,000) who pre-ordered the game got it on the 24th, just before Christmas and also got a limited edition including a JukeBox music CD. Promotions nearer the launch included Shenmue bandanas, Shenmue Cinema bookmarks, and a video called "The Unknown World Of Shenmue".

Taking a whole year to translate due to being dubbed, Shenmue was finally released in America on the 7th November 2000, almost a whole year since the original Japanese release. There was again the same limited edition.

European gamers finally got to lay our hands on the masterpiece on the 1st December 2000, without even the limited edition.

After the first chapter got its release, Sega announced Shenmue: The Movie, which was to include the English voices and compiled from scenes from the first game. It was first shown on 20th January at a big conference, and lasted 90 minutes. Shenmue II footage and info was released. The Movie was also shown in August in Japan before Shenmue II was launched.

On the 18th January 2001, a disc containing a Shenmue II promo movie was given away with the Japanese release of Fighting Vipers II.

"US Shenmue" was released in Japan on the 5th July 2001. This was simply the English language version of the first game.

Shenmue II, containing four discs/chapters plus a special edition which contained two Virtua Fighter 4 and history discs, was released on September 6th.

The Western version of Shenmue II is known to remain in Japanese but with English subtitles and be released first in Europe on the 30th November

At the Fall Tokyo Games Show 2001, on 12 October, it was announced by Sega and Microsoft that Shenmue II was not going to be released in America on the Dreamcast. The forthcoming 4th December release date was scrapped. It was announced that Microsoft had bought the American rights and the game would instead be released on the X-Box in the fall of 2002.

The English release of Shenmue II for Dreamcast was 30th November 2001 for Europe only.

Shenmue: The Movie was released in Japan on DVD on 21st December 2001. This included the 90 minute long movie with English and Japanese voices. Japanese subtitles are also on the disc, but sadly none in English. Also included are a trailer, and a small video featuring the voice actors for Ryo and Ren running around Hong Kong.