As Witcher devs CD Projekt Red recompile their new Keanu Reeves simulator before going live on the Xbox One, PC, and PS4 this November, aspiring street samurai need not wait until 2077 to hack the planet. Unlike Cyberpunk 2020, the board game version of current year, Shadowrun is a science-fiction tabletop RPG rigged with a fantasy flair, augmenting the high technology of Deus Ex with the wizardry of Lord of the Rings.

For those trying to get with the program, Shadowrun First Edition was originally published by FASA Corporation in 1989. It employed a d6-based system similar to West End Star Wars, using a dice pool defined by character skill levels and modifiers to hit different target numbers. Freelance fixers decked out in the latest techware jacked into the Matrix and engaged in computer piracy, industrial espionage, and nocturnal wetworks in exchange for Nuyen, the digital currency of the future. These cybernetic felons—wanted men, women, and metahumans alike—were called Shadowrunners.

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The world of Shadowrun is Metropolis (1927) if it were written by Gary Gygax and George Lucas after indulging in too much Longbottom Leaf. A schizophrenic web of international megacorps, mercs, the Yakuza, three-letter agencies, occult orders, Great Dragons, genetically engineered abominations, and even organized religions waged invisible war to determine the fate of cyberspace. But Shadowrun’s success was no conspiracy theory; the roleplaying game is currently in its Sixth Edition after simplifying target numbers, streamlining decking, and rebooting the Matrix to go wireless, which had huge implications to both lore and gameplay.

“Welcome to the world of Shadowrun, where man meets magic and machine.”

In the nineties, Shadowrun tried to change directory into the computer gaming industry with two self-titled releases on the Super Nintendo and Genesis. Unfortunately, hardware limitations prevented these early prototypes from faithfully executing the technotronic dystopia of post-Crash Seattle. For an entire decade, aside from an obscure Sega CD visual novel of the same name, Shadowrun video games went offline.

On May 29, 2007, FASA and publisher Microsoft Game Studios launched a class-based team-focused first-person shooter: Shadowrun (360/PC). This infamous multiplayer-only  FPS achieved cult classic status among diehards but was iced by critics for light content and a glitchy Windows Vista port. Cross-play between both platforms was far ahead of its time, but the pinpoint accuracy of a high DPI mouse compared to the Xbox 360 controller's stubby analog sticks meant that console players were griefed into submission.

The game's Goblinization of character abilities with the hardcore gunplay of Counter-Strike foreshadowed today’s hero shooters like VALORANT and Overwatch. Even MLG promoted the game, seduced by its high skill ceiling, making Shadowrun an eSport years before the rise of Twitch.

At the time, however, Halo 3 splattered its playerbase, and lackluster sales terminated FASA Studio. Ironically, for a license about daemonic international corporations taking over the world, suits were skeptical Shadowrun could ever reach mainstream acclaim. But real runners refused to delete the franchise from memory.

Creator Jordan Weisman interfaced with the appropriately named studio Harebrained Schemes and created an ambitious Kickstarter to crowdfund a new entry in the series: Shadowrun Returns. Promising swag like soundtracks, posters, t-shirts, custom NPCs, and even backer names in the credits, Returns raised a total of $1,895,772.

Weisman’s good karma paid off. The reboot was a massive hit, maintaining to this day an average Steam review score of Very Positive. Though some critics complained the main storyline Dead Man’s Switch was too Ruby-on-rails, dedicated nerds coded entire additional campaigns on the workshop thanks to the free level editor. Harebrained Schemes proved that indie games could rely on their fans instead of sacrificing their creative vision on the brazen altar of AAA publishers.

Due to the glowing reception of Shadowrun Returns, a sequel was virtually guaranteed. As players rooted for another installment, Harebrained Schemes slotted in a downloadable custom campaign of their own in 2014, subsequently re-released as a full-length director’s cut—Shadowrun: Dragonfall.

Rumors that the Great Dragon Feuerschwinge may still be alive, waiting for the right moment to return…

Dragonfall surpassed Returns in every conceivable way: an updated user interface, additional endings, crunchier combat, smarter AI, and more choice & consequence. A run gone wrong in anarchist Berlin quickly accelerated into a sprawling twenty-hour quest to frag a Great Dragon. Codexers were even inclined to compare Dragonfall to all-time classics like Circle of Eight-modded Temple of Elemental Evil and Fallout 2.

In 2015, cyber punks on Kickstarter threw money at the screen to fund Harebrained’s latest scheme, Shadowrun: Hong Kong. 31,497 backers donated a total of more than a million dollars—that’s over 33,333 bottles of gamer girl bathwater.

A land of bright lights, gleaming towers, and restless spirits where life is cheap and everything is for sale.

Shadowrun: Hong Kong evoked the same atmosphere as the original Deus Ex: a bleak, fluorescent hell where nothing ever happens, until it does. Taking place in the fascist Hong Kong Free Enterprise Zone after megacorps have liquidated their competition and seized absolute control by 2056, the game follows the player character during an impromptu family reunion as the protagonist is dumped in the middle of a gunfight and framed. As a result of fan feedback, the ingame Matrix was remastered, and the overworld was massively increased in scope.

As the final title in Harebrained’s unplanned trilogy, HK was a victim of Shadowrun’s own success. Gamers grew tired of the copy/pasted engine and preferred the grittier difficulty of its predecessors. The developers patched most of the problems in Hong Kong with an Extended Edition, adding approximately six hours of new content. This immediately prompted angry user reviews that the game was too long, proving that no one will ever be truly happy and humanity was a mistake.

Source: Shadowrun Complete Collection

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