Shenmue 1 & 2 will be locked at 30fps


Yesterday, SEGA announced that the remastered collection of Shenmue 1 and 2 will release on August 21st. However, the team has also revealed that the PC version – like pretty much all the latest SEGA games – will be using the Denuvo anti-tamper tech. Not only that, but all versions will be locked at 30fps.

SEGA revealed this new framerate information in its latest FAQ for Shenmue I & II. As the publisher noted, throughout the engine, game code and scripts are hard coded assumptions about a fixed 30Hz frame update rate, so the game needs to run at 30Hz.

So yeah, a remaster that is plagued by 30fps and has Denuvo. Doesn’t really sound great, right? Ironically, the Dreamcast emulators can run these games at 60fps (though as you may have guessed, there are some physics issues with them when running at higher than 30fps framerates). Below you can find a video showing the DC version of Shenmue running with 60fps (edit: video replaced with another that features a framerate counter).

Shenmue 4K GTX 980 Null DC Emulator Gameplay + Settings/60Fps

Here is hoping that modders will be able to save the day and release a 60fps mod for these games!