It's been nearly three years since Shenmue 3 was officially announced, and it is looking likely that the game will finally release this year. One of the game's developers seems to think so, as well.

In a post on Twitter, Cedric Biscay, founder of Shibuya Productions, wished his followers a happy New Year and seemed optimistic of the future of Shenmue 3 going into 2018. "It will be great with the #Shenmue3 release," Biscay wrote. He finished his post by teasing "many other surprises" as well.

What these surprises could be are anyone's guess, but many fans online are hopeful that Biscay is hinting at possible remasters of Shenmue 1 and 2. It's been long speculated that remasters were in the works after Sega of Europe registered online domain names for both Shenmue Remastered and Shenmue HD last year. Releasing remasters would be wonderful for longtime fans of the series who want to revisit the previous two games, and helpful to newcomers who want to catch up on the story or who just want to see what all the fuss is about.

After years of floating around development limbo, Shenmue 3 was announced at E3 2015, much to the surprise and delight of fans everywhere. The reveal came with an ambitious Kickstarter campaign to fund the project, which was easily fulfilled just hours after it was announced, breaking records in the process.

Since then, its development has had a few ups and downs. Early on it was announced that the original games' voice actors have pledged to return and many of the early screenshots were stunning. However, Shenmue 3 was originally set to release in December of last year, but has since been delayed to the second half of 2018. Additionally, the game's first teaser trailer wasn't quite up to par with expectations and caused concern throughout the fanbase.

Shenmue 3 will release for PS4 and PC in the back half of 2018.

Source: Twitter