Why You Should Care About Shadowrun Returns

The name Shadowrun, at least among role-playing fans, instantly brings up images of Elves with katanas and cybernetic implants leaping from rooftop to rooftop, trolls and orcs dressed in suits serving as bouncers, and of course street savvy hackers making their way through the matrix to find their next prize. It’s a world filled with over the top images, a future where technology and fantasy collide to create of gaming’s most revered franchises.

Despite the games popularity in the area of novels and tabletop gaming, its success hasn’t translated into success in the area of videogames, with the exception of the Shadowrun video game for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. Thankfully, with the help of fans around the world and a little website named Kickstarter, a Shadowrun video game revival is on the horizon. Here is why you should be excited for the upcoming Shadowrun Returns.

Almost 2 million dollars going exactly towards the type of game Shadowrun fans want.

Kickstarter is a crowdsourcing website that allows people to essentially pay to see a project created, and that is exactly what is happening right now. After the letdown that was the Shadowrun first person shooter released in 2007, a game that featured almost none of the aspects of the franchise that made it popular, hope seemed to be lost that the game would rise again. However, all hope wasn’t lost. Managing to acquire the rights of the Shadowrun franchise from Microsoft, Jordan Weisman, the creator of the tabletop game, managed to require the rights to make Shadowrun video games. His game company, Harebrained Schemes, went about imagining a Shadowrun game that would stay true to the franchise and how exactly the game would be created. With almost no interest in traditional publishers, Weis looked to Kickstarter, a crowdsourcing website that allows people to essentially pay to see a project created. Weis and Harebrained Schemes sent out a proposal, and the fans listened. In only a few days the project reached its goal of $400,000 and would eventually end up raising $1.8 million to go towards the game. So a new game is being made, so what? What is special about how this project game together is that Harebrained Schemes doesn’t have to meet the expectations or deadlines of a publisher who is concerned about their investment. Weis and his team get to make exactly the kind of game they want with almost $2 million – and one the fans want. Expect a classic RPG with a great story, depth, combat, dialogue and a whole new world to explore.

Contextual Gameplay in Four Realities

One of the games major selling points is its contextual combat system. The world of Shadowrun is laced with multiple realities, whether they be the physical “real” world, the internetesque matrix, or a world laced with magical auras and properties. Each character can manipulate the world in different ways, making players learn each characters abilities to prevail in battles of turn based strategy.

Story Matters

Originating from a tabletop RPG, it should come as no surprise that story plays a big role in the Shadowrun universe, and Shadowrun Returns is no different. Harebrained Schemes looks to combine the storytelling skills of many of the authors that have written in the Shadowrun universe.  A complex story that changes with player decisions and conversation choices is promised, and is nothing less than what fans of this classic franchise expect.

Expect dragons, mega corporations, hackers, samurai and augmented reality to make a big comeback when Shadowrun Returns arrives in 2013.

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