What is it?
Shadowrun Returns is a single player role playing game with tactical turn based combat elements made by Harebrained Schemes. It's also a Kickstarter funded game released in mid-2013 based upon the Shadowrun table-top boardgame. Whilst it include a campaign, Dead Mans Switch, there is also support for the Steam workshop and comes with custom mission tools so that users can share and play each others campaigns.
What is it about?
The main campaign included follows the story of your character investigating the mysterious death of a friend and trying to track down the killer in 2054 Seattle. The characters motivations are a combination of honour, greed and nothing better to do. The Dead Mans Switch story lasts around 11 hours and presents a good and well polished story with many interesting characters and conversation options. Whilst this included campaign is interesting and enjoyable, giving back a semblance of old noir style detective stories, the real gem is in the use of the Steam Workshop and included mission building tools to allow sharing of stories.
Combat in the game takes place in a turn based manner, similar to X-Com. The primary skills that are used are take the form of ranged, close and magical combat and are used dependent on your characters abilities. As such, a shaman is more likely to use summoning or magical attacks to fight enemies.
However, forming teams of diverse runners is important for victory. Shamans can often boost accuracy and provide other shield bonuses for team-mates, whilst deckers can hack into the matrix to override sentry guns and other systems. Alongside this, deckers engage in combat with AI systems and other deckers within the matrix and combat takes part in a similar manner to the physical world.
As the player levels up, using karma, they can upgrade their stats to provide combat bonuses in different skills. These include the ability to use advanced decking equipment, improved weapon accuracy, better conversation options and more.
Where can I get it?
Shadowrun Returns is available for PC(Mac and Windows), iOS, Android and Linux. Currently it is available on the Steam and Humble store pages. There is also a sequel out called Dragonfall which is available as DLC. Extra campaigns and stories are available via the steam workshop. I am currently playing through Shadowrun Unlimited which provides a very interesting campaign so far and can be found
here.
What do you think?
Overall Shadowrun Returns is a very interesting RPG game, the included campaign is good and provides enough to whet your appetite however the inclusion of steam workshop and custom content support is what makes this game worthwhile. Already campaigns such as Shadowrun Unlimited and Jacked-Up have provided extended hours of gameplay and interesting and novel additions to gameplay functionality such as safe houses. Although this is the case, it would've been nice if more official campaigns were included with the base game.
The game itself follows closely to the original Shadowrun lore and ties the campaign into the mythos aided by the fact that Jordan Weisman, creator of the original Shadowrun started this project. This merger of cyberpunk and fantasy also makes for a very interesting setting which I personally enjoy a lot. Apart from this, the in-game artwork and background environments are beautiful and further emphasise the dystopian nature of the setting. The lack of voice recordings is offset by the (for the most part) well written story and appropriate soundtrack.
Rating : 8 / 10
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