It might seem like it’s been a while since we’ve seen an official update from the Shenmue III team. Recently, an interview with Keiji Okayasu was released by the team, announcing his new role as sub-director for Shenmue III’s development. While Keiji Okayasu works for studiofake (established towards the end of Shenmue II’s development), and Yu Suzuki still maintains his position as main director over Shenmue III, Suzuki approached Okayasu to assist in Shenmue III’s development as he has done in the past.

This interview offers insight into Okayasu’s involvement with the Shenmue games (previously a member of SEGA’s storied AM2 team,) including his past difficulty in understanding Suzuki’s creative vision. Additionally, he speaks about his journey to understand what he believes to make Suzuki an avant-garde developer, which is in part tied to Suzuki’s insistence on considering the vantage point of those who aren’t “hardcore gamers.” Now that Okayasu is part of the team, he is particularly striving to maintain the Shenmue series’ strong sense of atmosphere.

We’ve attached below the five-minute Okayasu interview by way of ShenmueDojo, a Shenmue community resource. Be sure to watch it! Spliced throughout the video are some quick glances at the development room. The interview is accompanied by a rather nice piano arrangement of the main Shenmue theme…