Epic Games Will Pay For Shenmue III Refunds For Kickstarter Backers

Tim Sweeney, the CEO and founder of Epic Games, has issued a statement regarding Shenmue III and the ongoing saga related to its timed-exclusivity arrangement with the Epic Games Store. Epic Games will be covering the refunds for Kickstarter backers who expected and wanted a Steam key for the game, but would like to back out and get their money back due to the change in distribution.

Sweeney made the following statement regarding Shenmue III refunds on Twitter.

Epic is funding the cost of all Kickstarter refunds resulting from Shenmue III‘s move to the Epic Games store, so that refunds won’t reduce Ys Net’s development funding.

Back at E3 2019, it was confirmed that the Shenmue III PC release would be a temporary Epic Games Store exclusive. Instead, it would eventually come to Steam “in the future.” As E3 ended, Ys Net and Deep Silver issued a statement saying it would assess the situation and report back to people. On July 2, 2019, it confirmed there would be no day one Steam option and people who had picked the PC version of the game would be able to switch to a different platform,

Shenmue III will come to the PlayStation 4 and PC on November 19, 2019.