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| Some of the many newly-found renders |
The webpage was first archived by the Wayback Machine in February 2022, which suggests that access may have changed - perhaps unintentionally - from private to public around that time.
How the Website Was Discovered
This year, a large collection of original Shenmue development artworks and design documents was acquired at auction by a small group of dedicated fans. These materials were generously made available to the wider community. While reviewing the contents, one name appeared repeatedly: Hideki Kawabata. Further investigation into his background led to the discovery of a historical page on his personal website - and it is here that an entirely separate treasure trove of 3D character and promotional renders from the Shenmue development era was found.
This series of posts will focus specifically on these images, as posted on Kawabata’s website, rather than the extensive auction-sourced materials housed on the Shenmue Dojo which will be a separate future topic.
The collection on Kawabata's page includes a wide range of 3D renders featuring main characters, NPCs, and a small number of locations. While many of these designs appear in the first two released games, others do not. This hints that some may have been cut during development, or potentially, they may even provide glimpses of content planned for Shenmue IV and beyond.
In this blog post, we will give an overview of what the collection contains, and subsequent posts will take a closer look at some of its most interesting and surprising items.
