[Team Yu]

"No night in Japan is complete without a great Yu Suzuki visit!" tweeted Gio Corsi today, marking the latest photo op for Sony’s head of Third Party Productions and his colleague Adam Boyes, VP of Publisher & Developer Relations, with the director of Shenmue III.

We wouldn’t read anything into this as far as next month’s E3 goes, as the PlayStation team regularly meet with Ys Net to discuss the game’s progress whenever they have the chance, such as their previously documented catch-up in November.

At last year’s E3, a Kickstarter for Shenmue III was announced live on stage during Sony’s conference and was fully funded within hours. Sony will be assisting with marketing and publishing for the PlayStation 4 version of the game, while co-producer Cédric Biscay and his company Shibuya Productions handle promotion of the PC version.

Crowdfunding rewards remain available to new backers with PayPal at shenmue.link/order, with all proceeds being ploughed directly into the game’s ongoing development by Ys Net. The latest stretch goal to be unlocked - for a new take on ragdoll reactions in combat - was done so via this official Slacker Backer site, picking up where the Kickstarter page left off.