[Team Yu]

In the past, whenever Sega teased any kind of announcement or new game reveal, they could always count on Shenmue fans to hope against hope, speculating whether Shenmue III's day had come.

Now that Yu Suzuki has taken the task of Shenmue III into his own hands, Sega might have thought they'd washed theirs of this tradition. Alas, there's still the trifling matter of Shenmue 1 & 2 remasters, which they are repeatedly said to be "investigating" while fans nervously count down the months to the sequel, whose success may be influenced by newcomers' ability to play the original chapters first.

So when Sega's American and European social media teams yesterday posted a cryptic picture of a lightbulb and a date two weeks in the future, they immediately found themselves on the receiving end of tweets bearing the hashtag #SaveShenmueHD. Whether seeing a tenuous link to the series or none at all, fans wanted to remind the company that demand for those remasters of Shenmue 1 & 2 is still strong.

It didn't take long for information to surface that pointed to this teaser being related to an upcoming sim game by Two Point Studios - unrelated to Shenmue, just as so many red herrings had been over the years. But it was the persistence of Shenmue fans through each of those disappointments that ensured the franchise would one day live on, and it's our hope that the same will hold true for Shenmue HD.

So every month on the 3rd, fans will continue to assemble like clockwork for the routine #SaveShenmueHD Tweetathon, impressing upon Sega and all observers the need for new versions of Shenmue 1 & 2. To ensure your voice is heard every month, simply customize a pre-loaded AutoTweet on our front page.