Release Info
2/28/2013
$14.99, via Steam.
Trailer
Story
MAN MEETS MAGIC & MACHINE. The year is 2054. Magic has returned to the world, awakening powerful creatures of myth and legend. Unchecked advances in technology have blurred the line between man and machine. Great dragons play humanity for pawns, while ruthless corporations bleed the world dry. In this new reality of elves and trolls, corporate arcologies and terrifying new magics, anything is possible
for a price. And when the powerful and the desperate need a job done, they turn to shadowrunners: mercenaries, living on the fringes of society, surviving day-by-day on skill and instinct alone.
BERLIN. The Flux-State: a stable anarchy enforced by an ever-shifting coalition of megacorps, political factions, and savvy power players. A place where almost anything goes, and the right connections can be the difference between success and starvation. Dangerous jobs abound and theres no better place to earn a quick payday provided you live long enough to spend it. For you and your team of battle-scarred runners, its just another day in the Free City of Berlin.
But a new threat is rising, one that could mean untold chaos and devastation. The only clue: whispers of the DRAGONFALL, a long-forgotten event from the earliest days of the Awakened world. As you find yourself drawn into a maze of veiled dangers and strange machinations, you will come face-to-face with a grim spectre of the past
and alter the course of Berlins future.
Screens
(Original game info below)
Release Info
7/25/2013
$17.99, PC, only via Steam
(This is due to a Microsoft licensing limitation, as I understand it.)
History (Tabletop Lore)
Created almost 25 years ago, Shadowrun remains one of the most original and cherished role-playing settings. The game worlds origin story mashes-up the dystopian Cyberpunk future of a Blade Runner with the high fantasy creatures and races of a Lords of the Rings in an organic way that produces iconic characters, environments, and situations.
Here's how it works:
According to the Mayan Calendar (and lots of tabloids), the world will end on December 21, 2012. Its part a 5,200 year cycle of death and rebirth that, in Shadowrun, actually charts the ebb and flow of magic from the Earth. So, on 12/21/12 magic will return, end this world, and wreak holy havoc while starting the next. Aboriginal cultures, who maintained their mystical traditions, are the first to feel the return of magic and use their newfound power to reshape the political, financial, and physical world around them.
As the magic increases, Elf and Dwarf babies are born to very surprised parents who carry the right combination of long-dormant genes. But all of these events pale in comparison to the horror of "goblinization", which painfully reshapes the teenage bodies of those unlucky enough to carry dominant Ork or Troll genes. And then the first Great Dragon rises from its 5,200 yearlong hibernation and circles over Tokyo, signaling that the world has truly Awakened.
Fast forward two generations, to a world transformed not only by the growth of magic but by the acceleration of cyber technologya continual effort to improve upon the gifts that nature gave humanity; by the inevitable maturation of the World Wide Web into the Matrixa network directly accessible by the human brain; and by the near elimination of governments as they are replaced megacorporationsmonolithic entities who see only customers, not citizens.
And moving through the dark shadows cast by the gleaming towers of the corps, are Shadowrunners disposable assets and corporate pawns scratching out a living using a combination of technology, magic, and street smarts. Shadowrunners live between the cracks and operate outside the law, doing the dirty work that corporate wage-slaves wont soil their hands with and occasionally acting as the only protection the citizenry can turn to.
Welcome to the world of Shadowrun, where man meets magic and machine.
History (Games)
HG101 Article
(SNES,1993)
The Super Nintendo version of Shadowrun was developed by Australian development company Beam Software (also known as Melbourne House, which later became Krome Studios Melbourne) and published by Data East.
As soon as you begin the game, the first thing you see is your character, Jake, get ruthlessly murdered by a group of street thugs. Shortly after the thugs clear the scene, a fox crawls from the shadows, enchants his body, shapeshifts into a woman and runs away. The game starts when the morticians are putting you on ice. As soon as they leave the room, you awaken from your slumber, apparently unharmed despite being riddled with bullets just moments earlier. And as luck would have it, you've completely lost your memory. So after freaking out the morgue guys, you escape, and need to solve a number of problems: Who are you? Who was the transforming fox chick? Why are there random snipers on the street shooting at you? Who is this man named Drake? And most bafflingly, why are talking dogs advising you of your destiny?
Shadowrun SNES is an odd mixture of PC-style point n' click adventure games with role playing mechanics. Although you directly control your character with the directional pad, you can call up a cursor at any moment to look at your surroundings or interact with them.
(Sega Genesis, 1993)
The Genesis version of Shadowrun was developed by Blue Sky Software, who also did the 16-bit Jurassic Park games for Sega, along with the Vectorman titles. It's a very, very different game, but the setting and mood is still pretty much the same.
In the Genesis Shadowrun, you take on the role of a young man named Joshua. Before you begin the game, you're prompted to choose from one of three different character classes. Samurai are most suited for combat, Deckers are the best for jacking in the Matrix, and Shamans are the best magicians. Much like the SNES version, you can hire shadowrunners to do certain jobs for you, so you can choose to be a Samurai and just contract Deckers or Shamans to help out.
(Sega CD, 1994)
One of the last Sega CD games ever made, and certainly one of the rarest.
Most English speaking Shadowrun fans are pretty familiar with the SNES and Genesis versions, but there was a Mega CD installment released only in Japan that's completely different from the others. Created by Compile in conjunction with Group SNE, the role playing company that published the Shadowrun game books in Japan, the Mega CD version is part digital novel, part RPG.
The game is broken up into several chapters, and focuses on a group of four Shadowrunners in Tokyo, a long ways from the Seattle setting of the previous games. The investigation scenes are much like Snatcher, with a single still picture representing the location and little portraits of the people you can talk to. Everything is menu-based, but is all incredibly simple. Most of the time is spent interrogating people, but you can't choose what to ask about - all you do is select the "talk" icon over and over and over, until more options open up. There are no items to use or puzzles to solve - these scenes are even less of a game than Snatcher was.
It has a dice-based battle system, and a very unique visual novel format, so if you like some JRPG in your Shadowrunning, this may be right up your alley.
(Xbox 360/PC, 2007)
An online-only FPS loosely based on the Shadowrun universe, and I do mean loosely. Hardly a bad game on its own merits, but it has almost nothing in common with the RPG.
Classes
Specialists in long-range magic use, often comprised of Elves, but not always.
Why fight it when you can hack it? Any decent Shadowrun team wanting to avoid a fight always has a Decker handy.
Both the necessary muscle in any team, and their worst nightmare when in an opponent's employ.
Shamans
Sort of like Summoners, Mages with spiritual specializations.
Gameplay
Shadowrun Returns is played from an isometric fixed viewpoint.
Heavy focus on story, of course.
Shadowrun Returns integrates text into gameplay in four ways:
Chapter and Scene Introductions set the context and emotional landscape for the scene you are about to play
In-world GM pop-ups describe the sights, sounds, and smells that your character is experiencing at this moment. For those of you who are unfamiliar with tabletop role-playing, GM stands for Game Master - the person charged with setting the stage and refereeing the action.
In-world character speech bubbles provide short quips from your characters and our NPCs, providing insights into their actions. Of course, sometimes, theyre just for entertainment.
Our conversation window allows you to have in-depth branching conversations with characters in the world, as well as GM narration that helps bring those characters to life. (Although we cant animate the single tear traveling down the street urchins face, we can type it!)
In addition, expect lots of shooting, spell casting, and of course, hacking.
Character Creation
At the beginning of the development process we were thinking of gear sets as exactly that: sets of gear that a character might wear. We realized pretty quickly, however, that that wasnt quite the right way to think about it. Given the zoomed-out isometric camera the gear sets werent something a character might wear, the gear sets were characters. I reworked some of the concepts, looking for that big visual punch.
We found that once we started concentrating on distilling the clothes and gear down to the very essence of an idea, that defiant Shadowrun individuality really started to show up in game. It became pretty clear that we were on the right track when we started spontaneously referring to each set with nicknames like Street Monk or Slick Mage and everyone understood each other. All those names are just our internal shorthand; the gearsets arent tied to your archetype and you will be able outfit your character as you see fit from the in-game vendors.
In-house we have been calling that instant impression of the character the iso read. Theres that one dominant area of each character that captures your imagination and communicates a bold idea simply, but the execution is anything but simple: too much detail and your character collapses into a pile of chattering pixels, too little detail and your character looks like a little tiny doll in a diorama.
Once you choose a gender and metatype, you will be able to select a portrait. We have assigned each portrait a corresponding skin color, hairstyle, beard, hair color, and (where applicable) set of horns so as you scroll through the portraits your model will update to match your selection.
But lets say you want a little more control over the look of your character
no problem! you can unlock the model and the portrait and toggle through a variable (say hair color or style) for the model by hand.
Screens
Community Mods
SNES Conversion Mod (!)
Launch Trailer
Reviews
Eurogamer - 8/10
Hope it lives up to my expectations.
