The Project Berkley Bonus Disc | Dengeki Dreamcast Magazine (January 2000)

A mysterious scene from the CG movie on the Project Berkley bonus disc

Japan's Dengeki Dreamcast magazine contained a huge 50-page Shenmue feature in its January 28 edition. Within this feature was a reflection on the intriguing Project Berkley bonus disc that had been released a year prior and even today can be considered to hold an abundance of hints and glimpses as to how Shenmue's plot might once have been (and even could still be) going to unfold.

Magazine page images kindly provided by SkillJim.

Why "Project Berkley"?

In the late 1990s, SEGA's AM2 division, led by Yu Suzuki, embarked on an ambitious venture known internally as Project Guppy. Initially conceived with the title of Virtua Fighter RPG for the SEGA Saturn, the project subsequently transitioned to the SEGA Dreamcast and was renamed Shenmue and the associated code name changed to Project Berkley. Code names were used to maintain confidentiality during development, adding an aura of mystery to the undertaking.

At his GDC 2014 post-mortem talk, Yu Suzuki reveals how the code name changed during development together with the game's title.

In recent years, Yu Suzuki has revealed the inspiration for the name "Project Berkley":

Q: At the beginning the game was given the codename “Project Berkley”, is there any special meaning behind this name?

YS: It’s actually like this [laughs]: because we realized at the start that this would be a completely different game to anything else on the market at the time, and its scale was unprecedented, we wanted to keep the project very confidential. Because of this we wanted to give it a very cool sounding name, like something from a spy movie. In Japan there’s this phrase bakkureru (ばっくれる) meaning to “pretend not to know” or “feign ignorance”, and by coincidence that there is a place in America with a similar sounding name, so we chose this “Project Berkley” codename.

A special feature of approximately 30 minutes, with the same name of Project Berkley, was included with the Japanese version of Virtua Fighter 3tb, released on Dreamcast in November 1998. Containing a CGI trailer, an extended interview with Yu Suzuki and various concept art, it provided gamers with an early glimpse into the project's innovative vision, highlighting its potential to revolutionize gaming.

The Virtua Fighter 3tb release included a bonus disc

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