To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Shenmue's release on the Dreamcast in Japan, Famitsu.com invited several former project members to reminisce over dinner about their experience working to create the masterpiece that is Shenmue and reflect on the game's legacy.
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| Left to right: Takeshi Hirai, Eigo Kasahara, Makoto Wada, Keiji Okayasu, Kenji Miyawaki, Takashi Matsuda, Toshiyuki Kurooka |
The participants were key members from the original Shenmue development team:
- Eigo Kasahara, who served as Planning Director for Shenmue I and II, and also worked on the Shenmue Passport and the PS4 remaster.
- Makoto Wada, a programmer on Shenmue I and lead programmer on II.
- Takeshi Hirai, the main system programmer on Shenmue I.
- Keiji Okayasu, the Assistant Director on Shenmue I, II, and III.
- Toshiyuki Kurooka, a programmer on Shenmue I, who focused on events around the Hazuki residence and the basement.
- Takashi Matsuda, a CG designer on Shenmue I and II who created many of the game's NPCs.
- Kenji Miyawaki, a graphic designer responsible for character designs and UI across the series.
"I didn't go home for two months." - One of the dinner participants.
"This isn't that kind of game!" - Yu Suzuki, upon discovering that the developers had implemented boob jiggle physics.
"We created Yokosuka from scratch in just one year - after the game's announcement (at the Shenmue Premiere)" - Takeshi Hirai.
The article translation starts below.
On December 29, 1999, exactly 25 years ago, a game was released by Sega Enterprises (as the company was known at the time). Titled Shenmue Chapter 1: Yokosuka, it introduced a new genre known as "FREE" (Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment), offering players an unprecedented level of freedom to explore a carefully crafted Japanese town while progressing through the story.
The main plot follows a young man investigating the mystery behind his father's death. At the same time, the game includes a wide range of side activities, such as capsule toy machines and arcades. It also features a combat system based on Virtua Fighter. Every town resident was given a unique name and behavioral routine, and all of them were fully voiced. The level of detail and forward-thinking design attracted a great deal of attention. Naturally, the production costs soared, and the total budget reportedly reached 7 billion yen. At the time, this earned the game a Guinness World Record as the most expensive video game ever made.
As you might imagine from the finished product, the development environment behind Shenmue was said to be nothing short of intense. Even now, 25 years later, stories from that time continue to surface. What was it really like? How was a game later described as a "legend" actually made? And what was Sega’s AM2 division like in the 1990s?
To find out, we gathered seven former developers who worked on Shenmue at AM2 for a reunion at an izakaya (a Japanese-style pub) somewhere in Tokyo. Perhaps because it had been so long since they'd seen each other, the atmosphere was a bit reserved at first. But as the drinks started flowing, the mood warmed up, and the conversation turned to deep and rarely heard stories. We’ve kept the publishable parts as close to the original as possible, and edited the less publishable ones just enough to make them printable. Enjoy these episodes from the development of Shenmue, a game that truly lives up to its legendary reputation.
Table of Contents
- Reuniting the Elite Developers Who Created Shenmue, 25 Years On
- The Harshness of the Development Environment
- Turning Ideas Into Reality
- The "Shenmue Maker" Programming Concept
- Countless Stories About Yu Suzuki
- 25th Anniversary Comment from Yu Suzuki
- Shenmue's Pivotal Role in the Developers' Lives
- Development of the Even More Expansive Shenmue II
- If Shenmue IV Were to Be Made...
- What Does Shenmue Mean to Each of You?
- 25th Anniversary Comment from Masaya Matsukaze
Reuniting the Elite Developers Who Created Shenmue, 25 Years On
— Is this the first time some of you have seen each other in a while?
Kasahara: Some of us still see each other from time to time, but yeah, there are a few people I haven’t seen in quite a while.
Matsuda: Back then, I had just joined the company. I was a total newbie designer, so while I remember people like Mr. Okayasu, Mr. Kasahara, and Mr. Wada, I doubt any of you really remember me.
Kurooka: Same here. I was just starting out as a rookie programmer.
Matsuda: It was the kind of environment where even brand-new graduates or people in their early twenties were constantly being handed work.
— This roundtable is a special feature for the 25th anniversary of Shenmue. We wanted to bring together people who were there at the time to talk about all the stories and memories from the development that are still talked about to this day.
Everyone: ...
— Why did it suddenly get so quiet? (laughs)
Okayasu: Well (laughs), there are just so many memories. It's hard to know where to begin.
Hirai: There were some tough times too.
Miyawaki: Personally, I don’t really have any painful memories, though.
Kasahara: You’re a special case! (laughs)
Matsuda: Everyone was basically staying overnight at the office, right?
Kasahara: I think the statute of limitations has passed by now, so I’ll say this: I remember looking at Wada’s timecard back then and being completely shocked at his working hours, even though we were working in the same department. He was barely going home at all.
Matsuda: Right! Mr. Wada was always at his desk, wasn’t he?
Wada: (Grins.)
— To start, could each of you tell us what role you had on Shenmue back then, and what you're doing now?
Okayasu: I'm Okayasu, Vice President of FUN Corporation. At the time, I was the Assistant Director, responsible for turning Yu-san’s (Yu Suzuki, Director of the Shenmue series) vision into reality. I also served as a point of contact for staff when they needed guidance or had concerns.
Kasahara: I'm Kasahara, and I’m actually the only one here who’s still at Sega. I worked as the Planning Director on both Shenmue titles. In short, I was a planner and designer. I was also in charge of What's Shenmue: Find Former Managing Director Yukawa* and the supporting software Shenmue Passport*. In 2018, I served as Localization Producer on the Shenmue I & II port.
*Note 1: What's Shenmue - A non-commercial demo disc for Shenmue Chapter 1: Yokosuka, where players search for Hidekazu Yukawa somewhere in the Dobuita shopping street. Yukawa, the public face of the Dreamcast, appeared in the game as himself, and provided his own voice, although the motion capture was most likely performed by someone else.
*Note 2: Shenmue Passport - A companion disc for Shenmue Chapter 1: Yokosuka offering online features via internet connection. Based on your save data, it provided story hints, allowed players to register high scores from the in-game arcade and compete with others nationwide, and included offline features like viewing characters rendered in high-resolution graphics and bonus images.
Hirai: I'm Hirai, founder and former CEO of Neilo. At the time, I was the main programmer. There were an overwhelming number of program files that made up the codebase for Chapter 1, and I personally wrote about three-quarters of them. So honestly, you could say I made Shenmue! (laughs)
— Wow.
Okayasu: Oh, come on. (laughs) You don’t have to start with bragging.
— Next, Mr. Wada, the one who reportedly hardly ever went home.
Wada: At the time, I wasn't a full-time Sega employee. I worked on Shenmue as a contract programmer. I actually joined the project partway through. Later on, I officially joined Sega and remained there until July 2024. I’ve since left the company and now work elsewhere. Looking back, I realize that Shenmue is what led me to join Sega in the first place.
Miyawaki: I worked on Shenmue as a designer. I was mainly in charge of character design, and also handled UI design and most of the 2D graphics.
— You’re the one who drew the original character design sheets for Ryo Hazuki, Shenhua, and the rest of the cast, aren't you.
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| Weekly Famitsu, December 25, 1998 issue. Character design sheets for Shenhua, Ren, and Niao Sun are featured on the page. A special feature series covering Dreamcast’s most highly anticipated title, “Project Berkley,” had already been running more than a year before the game’s release. |
Matsuda: Next, I’m Matsuda, CEO of Toydea. Shenmue was the very first title I worked on after joining Sega straight out of college, and among the members here, I was the most junior. Technically, I wasn’t part of the Shenmue team at first, but I got pulled in partway through to help out, and ended up staying on. I mainly worked on 3D character models.
Kurooka: I was around the same age as Mr. Matsuda, and I worked on Shenmue as a contract programmer. For Chapter 1, I mainly handled the event programming related to Ryo Hazuki. Specifically, the Hazuki residence and the basement areas.
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| The Hazuki Residence basement |
— With this diverse group in terms of age and roles, we’re looking forward to hearing a wide range of memories from the development of Shenmue.
Hirai: I have a lot of vivid memories, but to start with, I joined the team about six months after the project had already begun. At the time, there were around 15 programmers, and then about 15 more people, including myself, joined. That brought the total to about 30 programmers.
The Shenmue development team was originally part of the Second Software R&D Division, better known as AM2. It was a department focused on arcade game development. So while the team had produced hit after hit, like Daytona USA and Virtua Fighter, most of the programmers didn’t have much experience working on large-scale projects with so many people. They weren’t very good at coordinating with each other.
At that point, the team decided it was time to appoint a lead programmer to guide the rest. That’s when we had what was basically a “general election” within the team to decide who it would be. I think that was your idea, wasn’t it, Mr. Okayasu?
Okayasu: That’s right. I figured a general vote would be the best way to choose someone to take the lead.
Hirai: So everyone wrote down a name and cast their votes, and I ended up being chosen as the lead programmer. The next day, Mr. Okayasu called me in and just said, “You’re the lead programmer now.”
Okayasu: I don’t actually remember that part. (laughs)
Hirai: You probably just didn’t care that much about me. (laughs)
— Was the reason Mr. Hirai was chosen because he was particularly skilled and capable as a programmer?
Hirai: I had a lot of experience developing for home consoles, and I was already familiar with Sega hardware. At the very beginning, Shenmue wasn’t even planned for the Dreamcast - it started as Virtua Fighter RPG: The Legend of Akira, which was going to be released on the Sega Saturn, so I was also pretty proficient with Saturn programming.
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| The Legend of Akira script books [image added by Switch] |
On top of that, I also worked as a systems engineer, so I was good at setting up development environments, as well as optimizing and speeding up rendering and code. I imagine that’s why I was chosen. Of course, there were plenty of programmers more talented than me, but I think I stood out for being able to cover a broad range of areas.
Okayasu: You see what I mean? He’s got this whole “I’m amazing” vibe going on, right? (laughs) No wonder he got picked.
Hirai: No, no, I didn’t give off that vibe during the voting! (wry smile)
Okayasu: Basically, he had a natural leadership quality. For the record, both Hirai and Kasahara originally came from Sega’s Kansai development group. They were sent to Tokyo under the pretense of “just helping out,” but they ended up fully embedded in the Shenmue team.
Kasahara: Yeah, we were “hunted by Shenmue*.” (laughs)
*Note: "Shenmue hunting" (Shenmue-gari in Japanese) is a nickname that arose during the development of Shenmue Chapter 1: Yokosuka, referring to the large-scale and often aggressive recruitment of staff from inside and outside Sega. Due to its forceful nature and the sheer scale of it, people began calling it Shenmue-gari.
— Ah, the infamous rumor…
Matsuda: That’s a great term, isn’t it? (laughs)
Kasahara: This is what people mean when they talk about Shenmue hunting (laughs). Staff from other teams and even other companies were pulled into the project one after another - in some cases, almost forcibly.
Hirai: I was told, “It’ll be over in six months” when I came to Tokyo, but of course, it didn’t end at all.
Kasahara: Same here. Both of us were told it’d be six months, but naturally, it went way beyond that.
Hirai: Before joining Sega in Kansai, we were both at Irem. Back at Irem, we released at least one game a year. But after joining Sega, due to timing and bad luck, I spent about three years without releasing anything. So when I heard, “The game will be released in six months,” I thought, “Then I definitely want to be involved!” and made the trip from Kansai to Tokyo. And in the end... it took a further four years.
Okayasu: Among the programmers already on the team, there weren’t many people who had what it takes to lead a group. I had a sense that Hirai had that kind of leadership quality, and the fact that he was chosen in a vote suggests that the rest of the team saw him the same way.
I don’t remember the fine details, but under normal circumstances, Yu-san would have appointed someone and said, “You’re the lead programmer,” before kicking off the project. The fact that it hadn't been decided probably means he was struggling to find the right person at the time.
— Mr. Kurooka, how was your experience working on the event programming?
Kurooka: When building the events, I had to bring together all kinds of assets - story elements, text, graphics - and assemble them into a working sequence. The hardest part was that the content kept changing almost every week. We also had a kind of prototype build that we used for meetings, and I remember how the planning team would actually do the voicing for the events themselves. They’d just record the voices right there in the meeting room.
Also, this is something that ended up getting cut, but I once created a full daily routine for Fuku-san (Masayuki Fukuhara, one of the characters in the game). One of the behaviors I programmed was him going into the toilet and using it. But in the end, someone said, “It’d be pretty awkward if the player opened the door while he was in there,” (laughs) and that entire event got scrapped.
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| The Hazuki residence toilet |
— How about you, Mr. Matsuda?
Matsuda: Even for that time, Shenmue had an overwhelming number of characters. The character designers just couldn’t keep up - no matter how many they drew, there were still more townspeople to design, like random old men and women. Eventually, our 3D modeling team started creating characters directly without design sheets.
I had expected we’d be handed the original design and artwork and then model it in 3D. But I had just joined the company, and they were already letting me do design work too. I remember thinking, “What an amazing, free-spirited company this is!”
Everyone was modeling characters based on their own designs, and before long, it became a trend to base characters on our coworkers. I clearly remember how we started competing to see who could make the most Shenmue-style character that still looked like someone on the team.
— So there are actually staff-based characters in the game?
Matsuda: Tons. I’m in there too. In Shenmue II, I appear as a guy covered in full-body tattoos.
Kasahara: Yeah, those characters just kind of appeared without anyone noticing. (laughs)
Hirai: I think I’m in Chapter 1 somewhere too. (laughs)
Kurooka: I heard I’m in a Chinese restaurant. I didn’t even know until someone told me later.
Matsuda: The modeling team kind of ran wild. They were like, “If this is allowed, we’re just going to keep going,” and they started turning all the staff into 3D characters. So quite a few of us ended up in the game. I played one of the guys who gets beaten up by Ryo, so I’d see myself getting knocked out and just crack up. (laughs)
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| Takeshi Hirai's model in Shenmue [image added by Switch] |
Kurooka: During meetings, we would take turns operating the game for demonstration purposes, and I clearly remember how exhausted the senior staff members always looked. There would be all kinds of back-and-forth discussions going on, and while I wasn’t directly participating in the meetings, once my shift at the controls was over, I’d head back to the team and we’d all grumble, like, “Guess the specs are changing again.”
Matsuda: For me, it was the most densely-packed work environment I’ve ever experienced in my life. People from all sorts of companies were involved in finishing Shenmue, and new faces were coming and going every week. The sheer density of people was insane.
The desks weren’t as wide as today’s 140 cm ones - they were packed so tightly that your shoulders would touch the person next to you. It was completely crammed. And back then, you didn’t need to go to a designated smoking area to smoke. So you had this combination of huge manpower, extreme crowding, cramped office space, and on top of that, it was the 1990s - there was cigarette smoke everywhere. That feeling of being boxed in, that atmosphere... it’s something I still remember vividly. An unforgettable scene.
Technically there was a smoking area outside, but nobody really used it. People just smoked inside.
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| The office environment at the time [frame from NHK's Shenmue "Making Of" documentary] |
Kasahara: That’s because Yu-san smoked, so everyone else did too. And once Yu-san quit smoking, nobody was allowed to anymore. (laughs)
— Mr. Miyawaki, how about you, as the one who designed the main characters?
Miyawaki: I didn’t come from the game industry. I originally aspired to be a manga artist. But since I couldn’t make a living off that alone, I was working part-time at a bookstore. Then one day, an acquaintance asked if I could do a kind of freelance gig, drawing quick illustrations based on ideas that came up during a game planning meeting.
So I took the job, and when I showed up, Yu-san said, “I want this guy to be the main character designer.” Just like that, I suddenly found myself working on Shenmue. Out of nowhere, I was doing design work for a major game company: Sega, no less. It was a huge surprise.
But I had no experience with game development, so I was completely out of my depth. I remember constantly asking people around me for help while struggling to keep up.
— Did you feel a lot of pressure at the time?
Miyawaki: There were plenty of artists who could draw better than me. And yet I was the one designing the main characters, so yes, I felt a lot of pressure. Plus, since I came out of nowhere, I think people around me were probably wondering, “Who is this guy?”
Hirai: Yu-san really loved his art style. Anytime something came up, he’d say, “Get Miyawaki in here.” He relied heavily on Miyawaki’s artwork.
Okayasu: Miyawaki never had to deal with unreasonable demands, and his work went very smoothly. He might be the only person who never had any conflicts with anyone. He was really good at navigating things. (laughs)
Miyawaki: Now that you mention it, I really don’t remember having any arguments with anyone.
— It sounds like conflict was almost expected... is that fair to say?
Kasahara: The development floor was a battlefield. (laughs)
Hirai: I can’t even count how many arguments I witnessed. (laughs) There was guaranteed to be some kind of clash every Thursday and Friday, especially during the final year.
— What happened on Thursdays?
Okayasu: That’s one of my strongest memories. Every Thursday, we had a full-team meeting where we would gather all the pieces we’d worked on and compile them into a single build. The meeting would start in the evening and usually end around 2 or 3 in the morning. Naturally, no one could go home.
Afterwards, each department would receive a list of revision requests like “Please change this” or “Fix that,” and that’s how the day would end.
One thing I still clearly remember is a night when, as usual, the meeting wrapped up around 3 a.m., and Yu-san went to sleep. Afterward, the rest of us stayed up to compile instructions for each department, then we also tried to get a little sleep. The next morning, as soon as Yu-san woke up, the first thing he said was, “Is it done?”
When we told him, “It’s not done,” he asked, “Why not?” (wry smile). All we could say was, “Because we were sleeping.” (laughs) Yu-san genuinely didn’t seem to realize that we also needed sleep. (laughs)
— I see. So it was all-nighters all the time. Did you ever go out for drinks after work?
Kasahara: Sometimes, yes. But it wasn’t like big group outings. It was more like small groups of a few people. Things were so rough that you really only wanted to drink with others who understood what you were going through. We’d go out to “lick our wounds” together. (laughs)
And there were female staff members too, so people got closer and relationships started to form. We actually had a few “Shenmue marriages” come out of that environment.
— Wow! That’s actually really heartwarming.
Miyawaki: I remember there was this one incident involving the company’s internal BBS (Bulletin Board System). There was a single dot on the screen that looked like a speck of dust at first glance, but if you clicked it, it opened up this hidden message from a programmer bragging about his girlfriend. (laughs)
— That’s such a classic 1990s kind of story. (laughs)
Hirai: We also often went to play mahjong.
Kasahara: Oh yeah, we did. We’d work until late at night, then go to a mahjong parlor and play until morning, then head straight to the office after that...
Hirai: I can say this now, but at the time, to avoid being interrupted by questions or requests during work hours, I would go play mahjong until the last train. Then, after the trains had stopped, I’d head into the office and work until morning. (laughs) I even posted about it on the team’s internal BBS, and I remember getting scolded by Mr. Okayasu for it.
Okayasu: Hirai even used me as an excuse to his wife. Like, “I had no choice, Okayasu-san invited me,” when in reality he was just out at the mahjong parlor.
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| A mahjong parlor features in Shenmue Chapter One: Yokosuka. Was it based on detailed on-site research? |
Hirai: That’s right. (laughs) During the latter half of development, I think I only went home about twice a month. I was doing it intentionally, but basically I either slept at the office or played mahjong. My apartment was only a 10-minute walk from the office, but even going home felt like it would be wasting time.
— Even though it was just 10 minutes away?
Okayasu: He was either asleep at the office or out playing mahjong.
Hirai: I was still getting my work done, though! (laughs)
Okayasu: Are you sure there wasn’t another reason you didn’t want to go home?
Hirai: Nothing like that! (laughs) But one thing that was true - whenever Mr. Okayasu invited me out for drinks or mahjong, it always meant he was about to ask me to take on a big job. So I’d think, “Ah, here it comes,” and go out with him knowing full well I was about to get more work.
Okayasu: It sounds unthinkable now, but back then, pulling all-nighters was just normal. If you went home before the last train, people would actually glare at you. It was full-on toxic workplace stuff. (laughs) Of course, not everyone was an employee of Sega - we had outside contractors too, and many of them did go home properly.
That said, game development was kind of like that in general at the time. Shenmue may have just taken it to another level. (laughs)
Continue to Part Two.
Source: Famitsu.com – Shenmue 25th Anniversary Roundtable (Japanese) (December 2024)
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That was such a great insight — thanks a ton! Can’t wait for part two!
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