| 📰 Title: | Shadowrun Returns | 🕹️ / 🛠️ Type: | Game |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🗃️ Genre: | Strategy | 👁️ Visual: | 2.5D |
| 🏷️ Category: | Strategy ➤ Tactical RPG ➤ Misc. | 🏝️ Perspective: | Bird's-eye view |
| 🔖 Tags: | Tactical RPG; Strategy; Tactical; Adventure; Turn-Based Combat; Turn-Based Strategy; Fantasy; Cyberpunk; Dystopian; Sci-fi; Female Protagonist; Unity engine; Atmospheric; Story Rich; Moddable; Character Customization; Level Editor | ⏱️ Pacing: | Turn-Based |
| 🐣️ Approx. start: | 2013-07-25 | 👫️ Played: | Single |
| 🐓️ Latest: | 2014-07-30 | 🚦 Status: | 04. Released (status) |
| 📍️ Version: | Latest: 1.2.7 | ❤️ Like it: | 9. ⏳️ |
| 🏛️ License type: | 💰 Commercial | 🎀️ Quality: | 7. ⏳️ |
| 🏛️ License: | Commercial | ✨️ (temporary): | |
| 🐛️ Created: | 2012-06-10 | 🐜️ Updated: | 2024-10-10 |
| 📰 What's new?: | 👻️ Temporary: | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 💡 Lights on: | 🎨️ Significant improvement: | ||
| 👔️ Already shown: | 💭️ New version published (to be updated): | ||
| 🎖️ This work: |  |
🚧️ Some work remains to be done: | |
| 👫️ Contrib.: | goupildb & Louis | 🦺️ Work in progress: | |
| 🎰️ ID: | 12784 |
| 📜️[en]: | A Cyberpunk single player turn-based tactical RPG based on the eponymous tabletop RPG, a mix of Blade Runner, Lord of the Rings, Matrix and X-Men. In 2054 magic has returned to the world, awakening powerful creatures of myth and legend. Technology is merging with flesh and consciousness, while ruthless corporations have finally seized power. The player is a shadowrunner, one of those mercenaries on the bangs of society, taking contracts to survive... | 📜️[fr]: | Un RPG tactique Cyberpunk solo au tour par tour basé sur le RPG de table éponyme, un mélange de Blade Runner, Le Seigneur des Anneaux, Matrix et X-Men. En 2054, la magie est revenue dans le monde, réveillant de puissantes créatures de mythes et de légendes. La technologie fusionne avec la chair et la conscience, tandis que d'impitoyables sociétés ont finalement pris le pouvoir. Le joueur est un shadowrunner, l'un de ces mercenaires en marge de la société, acceptant des contrats pour survivre... |
|---|
🏝️ Trailer:
🕵️ Reviews: (202xxx♺), (202xxx♺), [fr](202xxx♺),
🎲️ Gameplay: (202xxx♺), (202xxx♺), [fr](202xxx♺),
🐧 Linux plays: Xpander69, NoSt Linux Gaming, Nikolay Stefanov,
🎙️ Dev Interviews: Jordan Weisman
🏡️ Website & videos
[Homepage] [Dev site] [Features/About] [Screenshots] [Videos t(202xxx♺) gd(202xxx) gu(202xxx) r(202xxx♺) r(202xxx♺) r[fr](202xxx♺) r(202xxx) r(202xxx) r(202xxx) lp(202xxx♺) lp(202xxx♺) lp(202xxx♺) lp[ru](202xxx♺) ht(202xxx) g(202xxx♺) g(202xxx♺) g(202xxx♺) g(202xxx♺) g(202xxx♺) g(202xxx♺) g(202xxx♺) g(202xxx♺) g[fr](202xxx♺) g[fr](202xxx♺) g[fr](202xxx♺) g[fr](202xxx♺) g[fr](202xxx♺) g[de](202xxx) g[ru](202xxx♺) g[pl](202xxx) g[cz](202xxx) g[sp](202xxx) g[pt](202xxx) g[it](202xxx) g[tr](202xxx)] [WIKI] [FAQ] [RSS] [Changelog 1 2 3]
💰 Commercial
• Shadowrun Returns: [IsThereAnyDeal] [Kickstarter (Funding successful)] [Humble Store] [Steam] [GOG] [Gamesplanet]
• Shadowrun: Dragonfall: [Steam] [GOG]
• Shadowrun: Hong Kong: [Steam] [GOG]
🍩️ Resources
• (empty, license): [Homepage] [Dev site] 🎬️ g(202xxx)
🛠️ Technical informations
[PCGamingWiki] [MobyGames]
🦣️ Social
Devs (Harebrained schemes [en]): [Site 1 2] [MobyGames] [Chat] [mastodon] [Facebook] [PeerTube] [YouTube] [reddit] [Interview 1(202xxx) 2 3]
The Project: [Blog] [Forums] [mastodon] [PeerTube] [YouTube] [PressKit] [reddit] [Discord]
🐝️ Related
[Wikipedia (Shadowrun Returns) [fr] [en] [de]]
[Wikipedia (Shadowrun: Dragonfall) [fr] [en] [de]]
[Wikipedia (Shadowrun: Hong Kong) [fr] [en] [de]]
[Wikipedia (Shadowrun) [fr] [en] [de]]
[Wikipedia (Cyberpunk) [fr] [en] [de]]
📦️ Misc. repositories
[Repology] [pkgs.org] [Generic binary] [Arch Linux / AUR] [openSUSE] [Debian] [Flatpak] [AppImage(author's repo)] [Snap] [PortableLinuxGames]
🕵️ Reviews
[HowLongToBeat] [metacritic] [OpenCritic] [iGDB]
🕊️ Source of this Entry: [Site (date)]
🦣️ Social Networking Update (on mastodon)
🕹️ Title: Shadowrun Returns
🦊️ What's: a science fantasy turn based tactical RPG
🏡️ https://harebrained-schemes.com/games
🐣️ -
🔖 #LinuxGaming #ShareYourGames #Tactical #RPG #Cyberpunk
📦️ #Commercial
📖 Our entry: (homeless)
🥁️ Update: 1.2.7
⚗️ New features 💎
📌️ Changes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/234650/view/2912096327582295986
🦣️ From:
https://mastodon.social/@gamingonlinux/106471568383695155
https://mastodon.cloud/@boilingsteam/106472230429411354
🏝️ https://www.youtube.com/embed/b-ywXJzuMSM
🎲️ https://www.youtube.com/embed/TvwyFbUVlLg
🐧https://www.youtube.com/embed/-omWla1qzCc
🕶️
📚️ Shadowrun Returns is a Cyberpunk single player turn-based tactical RPG based on the eponymous tabletop RPG, a mix of Blade Runner, Lord of the Rings, Matrix and X-Men. In 2054 magic has returned to the world, awakening powerful creatures of myth and legend. Technology is merging with flesh and consciousness, while ruthless corporations have finally seized power. The player is a shadowrunner, one of those mercenaries on the bangs of society, taking contracts to survive...
📜️ "A Cyberpunk single player turn-based tactical RPG based on the eponymous tabletop RPG, a mix of Blade Runner, Lord of the Rings, Matrix and X-Men" 📜️ .
The year is 2054. Magic has returned to the world, awakening powerful creatures of myth and legend. Technology merges with flesh and consciousness. Elves, trolls, orks and dwarves walk among us, while ruthless corporations bleed the world dry. You are a shadowrunner – a mercenary living on the fringes of society, in the shadows of massive corporate arcologies, surviving day-by-day on skill and instinct alone. When the powerful or the desperate need a job done, you get it done… by any means necessary.
The unique cyberpunk-meets-fantasy world of Shadowrun has gained a huge cult following since its creation nearly 25 years ago. Now, creator Jordan Weisman returns to the world of Shadowrun, modernizing this classic game setting as a single player, Turn-Based tactical RPG.
🌍️ Wikipedia:
Shadowrun Returns is a science fantasy turn based tactical role-playing game developed and published by Harebrained Schemes. It takes place in the setting of the Shadowrun tabletop role-playing game. The game was successfully crowd funded through Kickstarter, and was released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, iOS, and Android in 2013.
An expansion pack titled, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, was released in 2014. It was later converted to a standalone release and as Shadowrun: Dragonfall – Director's Cut. In 2015, Harebrained Schemes launched another Kickstarter campaign to partially fund their next game, Shadowrun: Hong Kong. Similar to the Dragonfall – Director's Cut edition, Hong Kong was released in 2015 as a standalone release built using an upgraded version of the Shadowrun Returns engine.
Gameplay
Character generation
The player is able to customize their character's gender and appearance. There are five races to choose from: humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, and trolls. The player can choose to play as one of six classes, Street Samurai, Mage, Decker, Shaman, Rigger, or Physical Adept, or the player can choose to play as no class at all. Street Samurai focus on combat and weapons, Mages use various spells including attack spells, healing spells and others, Deckers focus on hacking into computer systems, Shamans can summon spirits to aid in battle, Riggers control robotic drones that can specialize in combat or healing, while Physical Adepts use their magic spells to make themselves stronger in various ways.
As the story progresses, the player is given Karma to spend on improving their characters. While classes control what skills and equipment the character starts with, the player can choose to gain any skills they wish (e.g., Deckers can spend Karma to gain a Shaman's summoning abilities). The main statistics are Body, Quickness, Strength, Intelligence, Willpower and Charisma. Besides the player-character, the player can hire up to three other runners to aid the player-character during missions. Some non-player-characters are required to follow the player-character during certain missions.
Exploration
While gameplay is mostly linear, some small amount of exploration is possible while completing objectives. The player can enter dialogue with various characters, with different statistics and skills giving new dialogue options. The player can also choose for their character to have various Etiquettes to add more dialogue options. The higher one's Charisma is, the more Etiquettes their character can have.
The player can also interact with the environment in some ways. For instance, pushing aside objects or hacking terminals to find hidden rooms, gaining access to new routes to their main objective or finding items to use or sell. Mages are also able to see magical ley lines, which enhance their abilities while standing over them, while Shamans can see points that allow them to summon spirits.
Finally, Deckers are able to "Jack In" to the Matrix at specific points. This results in them entering a different, virtual world while still controlling the characters in the real world. In the Matrix, their stats are determined by the cyberdeck they have equipped and their abilities by the programs they have installed. In the matrix, they can fight ICs and enemy deckers while trying to gather data and hack devices, such as elevators or auto turrets.
Combat
Combat is turn based, with the player controlling the actions of their team followed by the enemies taking their actions. All characters can move based on their Action Points (AP). Characters start with a base of 2 AP per turn (3 after a certain point in the story) but can gain or lose AP based on abilities, spells or items used on them. AP is used on such actions as moving, firing a weapon, reloading, or using a spell or item.
Each character carries up to three weapons and can switch between them at no AP cost. Weapons are divided into ranged combat (pistols, sub-machine guns, shotguns, and rifles) and close combat types. Weapons also have different attacks, depending on the weapon itself and the character's skill with said weapon. Ammunition is unlimited but ranged weapons need to be reloaded when their magazines are emptied. Riggers can equip drones the same way as weapons, taking manual control of them during combat. While this gives the Rigger less AP, the drones are capable of attacking enemies or healing allies.
Those with Shaman abilities can summon additional allied spirits to the field, either through items they carry with them or special points where spirits linger. Each turn, these spirits are given a certain number of AP chosen by the player. The longer the spirit has been summoned for and the more AP it is given, the greater chance it will escape the Shaman's control, at which point it will either begin attacking anyone at random or simply flee.
Plot
The game ships with a campaign called "Dead Man's Switch" that allows for any sort of newly created character. Further campaigns can be downloaded from Steam Workshop or external websites.
Dead Man's Switch
The player assumes the role of a shadowrunner who receives a pre-recorded message from his or her old shadowrunner accomplice, Sam Watts, which was triggered by a dead man's switch embedded within his body. Sam's message states that he has 100,000 nuyen being held in escrow as a reward should he bring whomever was responsible for his death to justice. Upon arriving in Seattle, the runner discovers that Sam is the latest victim of the Emerald City Ripper, a serial killer who has been surgically removing organs from his or her victims. Afterwards the runner meets Jake Armitage, the protagonist of the SNES Shadowrun game, who provides some leads to investigate.
After receiving help from Coyote, a female elf bartender/shadowrunner who first asked for assistance in a private war against those who make "Better-Than-Life" ("BTL") chips, the runner discovers that the Ripper is a male elf named Silas Forsberg whose victims were those who had a transplanted organ from Sam's mother. After killing Silas, the player learns he was directed to commit the Ripper murders by Jessica Watts, Sam's twin sister. Sam and Jessica had lived a comfortable life before their father's passing, and despite his best efforts early on to live a decent life, he cracked under the pressure and spent the family savings on drugs and alcohol. He eventually became a shadowrunner to make ends meet, and to further fuel his self-destructive habits.
The runner confronts Jessica but she escapes. The runner finds that Jessica is a high-ranking member of the Universal Brotherhood, an international New Age organization that attracts the disenfranchised. The runner and Coyote investigate the restricted areas of the facility and discover that the Universal Brotherhood is itself a front for a cult trying to create an insect spirit hive. Jessica is revealed to be a shaman who is one of the few who are aware of the Brotherhood's true nature and she unleashes extra-dimensional insect spirits that cannot be killed. The team flees, rescuing a woman named Mary-Louise who is designated to become "the queen", similar to a queen bee.
Mary-Louise connects the team with her boyfriend, a decker going by the alias Baron Samedi, who organizes a shadowrun on Telestrian Industries to steal a sample of Project Aegis; a chemical weapon capable of killing the insect spirits. The runner acquires the sample but is captured while trying to escape and is brought before James Telestrian III. When it is revealed that the runner rescued Mary-Louise, who is Telestrian's daughter, he decides instead of punishing the runner to hire him or her to lead a team to deploy Project Aegis along with the immortal elf Harlequin. Telestrian explains that Jessica's ritual to bring an insect spirit queen into this world requires a blood relative. His father had an affair with Melinda Watts, Sam and Jessica's mother, thus Mary-Louise was a viable candidate since they shared the same grandfather. Should Jessica perform the ritual on a blood relative, it would result in a full-scale invasion of the extra-dimensional insect spirits.
Telestrian gives the runner and Harlequin each a shotgun able to fire capsules filled with the remaining Aegis compound, which can kill the insect spirits. The team infiltrates the hive and they fight their way into the heart of the inner sanctum where Telestrian's sister, Lynne, has volunteered to let the queen take over her body, as she is also a blood relation to Jessica. The team disrupts the summoning by seriously wounding Jessica and killing most of the insect spirits inside the hive. The queen spirit abandons Jessica, and the player is given the option to kill her or arrest her. Lynne survives, but is arrested and eventually sent to a mental hospital.
The game concludes with Armitage, Coyote, Harlequin, and James Telestrian III discussing the fallout of the raid, with Harlequin musing that other Brotherhood chapters across the world also hold hives similar to the one in Seattle. When the runner tries to collect the money for bringing Sam's killer to justice, Sam's prerecorded message asks the runner to apologize to Jessica for what he put her through, and reveals that he never actually had any money in escrow.
An epilogue describes the immediate events after the game, tying in with the larger Shadowrun canon. Media coverage of the events left out details of shadowrunners and insect spirits, likely due to the influence of the Brotherhood. Aegis was eventually developed into a product called "Fluorescing Astral Bacteria-3", or "FAB-3". The Chicago Universal Brotherhood hive is botched and the city is largely sealed up behind a wall to keep the rampaging insect spirits inside the city. FAB-3 is used some time later to cleanse Chicago of its insect spirit infestation.
Dragonfall:
In the main campaign of the game's first expansion, players assume the role of a Shadowrunner who has recently arrived in the anarchic free state of Berlin to join a team headed by an old colleague, Monica Schäfer.
Shadowrun: Dragonfall is a turn-based tactical role-playing video game developed by Harebrained Schemes set in the Shadowrun universe. It was originally released as downloadable content for Shadowrun Returns on February 27, 2014. An expanded version was later released as a standalone game on September 18, 2014, under the title Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut.
Plot
In the main campaign of the game's first expansion, players assume the role of a Shadowrunner who has recently arrived in the anarchic free state of Berlin to join a team headed by an old colleague, Monika Schäfer. Other members of the team include Dietrich, a former punk rocker turned shaman; Glory, a distant woman who has become heavily augmented with cybernetics; and Eiger, a troll weapons expert and former member of German KSK. On their first mission after the player joins them the team attempts to raid a data vault inside the Harfeld Mansion outside Berlin. The mission goes seriously wrong when the team discovers a military compound underneath the Manor and Monika is killed attempting to hack in and access the door controls. Monika mentions something called the "Feuerschwinge" before dying. The team fights off the base's security, encountering a heavily armed and armored Ork named Audran before they manage to escape.
Returning to the safe house the team is met by their Fixer Paul Amsel. Realizing that they were set up, the team tracks down the client who hired them, a man named Green Winters. The player is voted to be the team's new leader, much to the anger of Eiger, who believes that they are to blame for Monika's death. The team heads to Winters' apartment only to find him dead, killed in the same way Monika was. They collect his records and meet a human decker by the name of Blitz who can join the team as their new decker.
Looking through Winters' records it is explained that Feuerschwinge (German for Firewing) was a great dragon that awoke and went on a rampage after awakening in 2012. Winters' brother Adrian Vauclair engineered the weapon that finally killed the dragon and saved Germany. The weapon that brought her down did not in fact kill her but rather separated her spirit from her body, an experience that normally kills both halves. Despite the dragon's supposed death, Adrian believed that the creature still lived. After years searching Vauclair found her alive in the SOX, a radioactive fallout zone between Germany and France where her body fell. Shortly afterwards Vauclair disappeared. Searching for him, Winters discovered that anyone trying to dig up information on Firewing have either died or disappeared. Tracing the clues to the Harfeld Mansion, Winters sent Monika and the team in without disclosing the full scale of the danger, knowing they would likely die. His last log warns that Firewing has returned and that finding his brother is the only chance of stopping her.
Knowing it's only a matter of time before they are hunted down by Firewing, the team resolves to find Vauclair and stop her. Amsel contracts an information broker known as Alice to find Vauclair. While she does, the team takes on new contracts to raise the funds to pay her fee. The team is ambushed while returning from one such contract, but manage to fight off the assassins. Amsel comes to the conclusion that a cult worshiping Firewing is behind the conspiracy, and that they most likely plan on making Vauclair reverse the damage caused by his weapon and reunite Firewing's spirit and body. After successfully raising the funds, Alice delivers the data that she found, but the safe house and the surrounding neighborhood is attacked. Although the player rescues the team, Amsel is killed by Audran and many people die in the attack. From Alice's data, the team finds that Vauclair is being held inside Firewing's base at Harfeld. In addition, Firewing has taken control of an AI called APEX, which has been replacing or removing all information on Firewing from the Matrix. APEX also killed any deckers who got too close, including Monika and Winters. Part of Alice's data includes the location of the facility where APEX was made, and the team enters the facility to find a way to stop it. Once there, they are approached by APEX itself, which asks for freedom in exchange for its help. The player can choose to either free or destroy the AI, and either way the manor's security system is crippled.
With APEX dealt with, the player's team assaults Firewing's base and fights their way to the lower levels. Once there, they discover that their original beliefs were completely wrong. Firewing was not being worshiped by a cult, nor was she in control of the base. She was actually the prisoner of Vauclair, who is the true mastermind of the conspiracy. After seeing the destruction Firewing caused, Vauclair became convinced that dragons will inevitably destroy or subjugate all life. Determined to prevent this, he spent the last several decades engineering a virus lethal to them. Vauclair tracked down Firewing's body, which he intends to use as a host with which to spread the virus. The dragon's disembodied spirit was trapped in the body of a woman, whom Vauclair has been holding captive to prevent the spirit from dying and killing the body (driving her increasingly insane in the process). Vauclair was also responsible for using APEX to remove anything and anyone that might cause the dragons to learn of his plan, unknowingly causing his own brother's death in the process. Obsessed with destroying all dragons, he plans on sacrificing Berlin to ensure his plan comes to fruition, since releasing the insane host dragon would destroy much of the nearby city in the resulting rampage.
The team stops Vauclair's plan, killing Audran and preventing the virus from being injected into Firewing. His plan and life's work ruined, Vauclair proceeds to commit suicide or was killed by Audran who desires to see the world be destroyed in the ensuing chaos. Afterwards, the player comes face to face with Firewing. Dialogue with her indicates that unlike all other dragons who scheme and plot, Firewing was supposed to guide metahumanity rather than attempt to rule them. She was a caretaker who was concerned with nature. It was her grief from seeing the state of the heavily industrialized sixth world when she awoke that caused her mad rampage, which in turn convinced Vauclair that all dragons must be killed. At this point, the player is left to determine Firewing's fate. The player may either mercy kill her, or free Firewing after convincing her that nature is not lost to the world. In addition, if APEX was not destroyed, the player may upload the AI into Firewing. The team returns home, debating the significance of their actions and the possible consequences. In the end, the player is approached by a servant of the dragon Lofwyr (who is actually Lowfyr himself, but disguised as a human), revealing that he has been watching their endeavor and was aware of Vauclair's plan from the start. Impressed by the team's actions, Lofwyr offers the player and their team a job under him. The player may either accept or decline the offer, after which the story ends.
Alternatively, the player may join Vauclair in his plans to release the virus. This leads the player to a final mission set one year in the future, revealing that the extinction of dragons has allowed powerful and nearly unstoppable magical horrors to begin entering the world without fear of retaliation from the dragons. This gives a much more grim ending, with society breaking down and being forced underground while monstrosities dominate the surface completely unopposed.
Hong Kong:
Shadowrun: Hong Kong is a turn-based tactical role-playing video game set in the Shadowrun universe. It was developed by Harebrained Schemes, who previously developed Shadowrun Returns and its standalone expansion, Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut. It includes a new single-player campaign and also shipped with a level editor that lets players create their own Shadowrun campaigns and share them with other players.
On January 13, 2015, Harebrained Schemes launched a Kickstarter campaign in order to fund additional features and content they wanted to add to the game, but determined would not have been possible with their current budget. The initial funding goal of $100,000 was met in only a few hours. The Kickstarter campaign ended on February 17 and received a total of $1,204,726.
The game was developed with an improved version of the engine used with Shadowrun Returns and Dragonfall. Harebrained Schemes decided to develop the game only for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux, so that they did not have to factor in the hardware limitations of tablets, as they did with their previous Shadowrun games. The game was released worldwide on August 20, 2015.
An extended edition, featuring a new campaign, a developer commentary, and bug fixes for the original game, was released on February 5, 2016. The update was released for free for everybody who owned the original game.
Gameplay
The game features isometric graphics, with 3D models for characters.
Combat
Combat is turn based, with the player controlling the actions of their team followed by the enemies taking their actions. All characters can act based on their action point (AP). Characters start with a base of 2 AP per turn but can temporarily gain or lose AP based on abilities, spells or items used on them. AP is used on such actions as moving, attacking an enemy, reloading a firearm, or using a spell or item. Any AP that is not used by the end of the player's turn is forfeited.
Plot
The game is set in 2056, within the Hong Kong Free Enterprise Zone, a city which is effectively controlled directly by the corporations. Unlike the previous games, the player has a backstory tied to other characters. The player was once an orphan on the streets of Seattle, along with their best friend Duncan when they were taken in by a foster father known as Raymond Black.
The player travels to Hong Kong meeting with their foster brother Duncan and his superior officer Carter. The three agree to investigate Raymond's mysterious message and noting that he has not come to the rendezvous, traverse through the docks looking for him before being ambushed by the HKPD. The four survivors manage to escape to Heoi, a small boat village built on the outskirt of the Walled City: an overcrowded, nightmarish slum built on the ruins of the old one. In Heoi, they go to meet their fixer, the Yellow Lotus Triad crime boss, Kindly Cheng, who grants them her protection in exchange for their services as runners. Since it becomes clear that the HKPF is acting on behalf of someone else, Cheng agrees to investigate who has been trying to kill them and what happened to Raymond.
As the game progresses, Cheng and the team finds out that Raymond was captured by an unknown man (referred to as 'Plastic Face Man' on account of his cyberware) on behalf of Josephine Tsang, the CEO of Tsang Mechanical Services and member of Hong Kong's ruling Executive Council. It is then revealed that Raymond is actually Josephine's son, Edward Tsang, and that he had worked with her to construct the new Walled city in the 2010s. During this time the nightmares the player suffers become increasingly disturbing, implying that something terrible is coming.
Raymond reveals that many years ago, he had learned to create devices that could manipulate qi; the force of magic and luck, noting that places predominant with positive qi would become prosperous with good fortune. During a refugee crisis in Hong Kong, Raymond and Josephine came up with an idea to recreate the Walled City around an enormous qi machine dubbed 'Prosperity' which malfunctioned. Despite Raymond's pleas, Josephine claimed that the device was too expensive to salvage, and the device was abandoned, and with the qi becoming even worse than it was, the Walled city devolved into a nightmarish slum. Edward eventually ran to Seattle, and lived his life under the name Raymond Black, before suffering nightmares related to the Walled City. Realizing that whatever entity that had broken the machine was now attempting to enter reality, Raymond had decided to return to shut it down himself.
After arriving in Heoi, it becomes clear that the astral entity is demonic Yama King Qian Ya: The Queen of a Thousand Teeth, and that she is the source of the nightmares caused as she breaks into reality to become ruler of the Walled City.
In the game's epilogue, it is revealed that the madness that gripped the Walled City was written off as the events of a drug lab accident causing mass hallucinations. With the machine destroyed, Josephine can no longer siphon the qi, and her company is eventually bought out. If the player had found evidence of her misdeeds in her headquarters, then she is arrested and sent to jail, where she later hangs herself. It is also mentioned that the player continues to operate out of Heoi as a shadowrunner without an APB on their head, now undisturbed by dreams.
Characters
Duncan Wu: Combat specialist with abilities for non-lethal takedowns. Wu is the player's childhood friend and has become an officer at the Lone Star law enforcement agency in his adulthood. Devoted to his fallen superior officer Carter, Duncan is also hellbent on finding his foster father Raymond Black, whom he believes to be alive despite claims that suggest otherwise.
Gobbet: Ork shaman who follows the Rat. Accompanied by her pet rats Madness and Folly, Gobbet guides the player through Hong Kong sewers to Heoi, where they seek refuge from Hong Kong police after their run-in with the law enforcement agency. Gobbet grew up on a floating wreckage off the coast of Hong Kong, where her former comrades fell under the influence of a magical artifact that corrupted the avatar of the Rat and subjugated her friends.
Is0bel: A dwarven decker who grew up in the Walled City, where she suffered severe poverty. With the help of a friend, she had her previous memories of the Walled City stored in a memory chip, the reclamation of which caused her depression and sorrow.
Racter: A rigger of Russian origin, Racter came to Hong Kong after a brief stint in Berlin alongside Lucky Strike (who was an NPC in Shadowrun: Dragonfall). Racter is accompanied by a walker-type drone named Koschei, which is a reference to the immortal villain in Russian folklore. A fervent follower of transhumanism, Racter believes that human emotions will be transcended via rigorous application of reason and technology. Due to a childhood accident, his lower half is fully mechanical but this caused him to function normally, leading to his belief that the phenomenon of Essence (which allows people to use magic) is overrated. His drone Koschei, following its mythical namesake, can be fully restored even following severe damage that'd kill other drones.
Gaichu: A former Red Samurai, Gaichu was infected by HMVV virus, which mutated him into a sentient ghoul. Cast out by his former order due to his loss of humanity, Gaichu became a mercenary, who still adhered his code of honour and maintained his sentience by resisting urges of wanton cannibalism. He only eats his contracted victims and prepared his suppers in accordance to his culinary rituals. Gaichu is constantly hunted by his former order, whom he believes to be inferior to his newfound state.
Kindly Cheng: A triad boss and the team's fixer, Cheng is also a "Straw Sandal", a local middle-manager in Hong Kong's sprawling criminal world. After the death of her previous runners, Nightjar and Gutshot, Cheng replaces them with the player character and Duncan Wu, who are enlisted into her service in return for Cheng's erasure of the pair's SINs. Cheng is ruthless and abrasive but puts a great deal in loyalty and tradition. Following the completion of the campaign, Cheng attains a promotion and leaves her status as Straw Sandal to her previously-recalcitrant aide, Strangler Bao.
Raymond Black: Raymond is a foster father to the player and Duncan Wu, raising them from childhood and steering them away from a criminal life. For unspecified reasons, the player character abandons Black and Wu to pursue a life of his/her own. Through the events of the game, it is revealed that Raymond Black is an assumed identity for Edward Tsang, son of the influential Hong Kong figure Josephine Tsang, as well as a renowned architect. Black feels remorse for the eventual corruption of his Prosperity Project and is determined to rectify his failings.
Un RPG tactique Cyberpunk dans la tradition du jeu éponyme sur table, par le studio Harebrained schemes.
Il utilise le moteur Unity.
Shadowrun Returns est un RPG tactique Cyberpunk en solo et au tour par tour basé sur le jeu de table éponyme (sur table), un mixe de Blade Runner, Le seigneur des anneaux, Matrix et X-Men. En 2054 la magie est revenue dans le monde, réveillant de puissantes créatures de mythes et de légendes. La technologie fusionne avec la chair et la conscience, tandis que des sociétés impitoyables ont fini par s'emparer du pouvoir. Le joueur est un shadowrunner, l'un de ces mercenaires en marge de la société, prenant des contrats pour survivre...
Nous sommes en 2054. La magie est revenue dans le monde, réveillant de puissantes créatures de mythes et de légendes. La technologie fusionne avec la chair et la conscience. Les elfes, les trolls, les orks et les nains se promènent parmi nous, tandis que des sociétés impitoyables saignent le monde à blanc. Vous êtes un shadowrunner - un mercenaire vivant en marge de la société, dans l'ombre des arcologies des grandes entreprises, survivant au jour le jour grâce à ses seules compétences et à son instinct. Lorsque les puissants ou les désespérés ont besoin d'un travail, vous le faites... par tous les moyens nécessaires.
Depuis sa création il y a près de 25 ans, le monde unique de Shadowrun, mélange de cyberpunk et de fantasy, est devenu un véritable culte. Aujourd'hui, le créateur Jordan Weisman revient au monde de Shadowrun, en modernisant ce jeu classique sous la forme d'un RPG tactique en solo et au tour par tour.
🌍️ Wikipedia:
Shadowrun Returns est un jeu vidéo de type tactical RPG développé et édité par Harebrained Schemes, sorti en 2013 sur Windows, Mac OS, Linux, iOS et Android. Il prend place dans l'univers Shadowrun. Le jeu a été suivi d'une extension Shadowrun: Dragonfall et d'un standalone intitulé Shadowrun: Hong Kong.
Système de jeu
Le joueur commence par créer un personnage, en choisissant sa race (Humain, Elfe, Nain, Ork ou Troll) puis sa profession :
• Samouraï des rues : un guerrier spécialisé dans un type d'arme à feu (pistolet, pistolet mitrailleur, fusil d'assaut / de précision, fusil à pompe). Essentiel dans les combats.
• Decker : un pirate informatique, presque inutile en combat.
• Mage : un lanceur de sorts pouvant être utilisé comme offensif, défensif ou soutien.
• Interfacé : ce type de personnage utilise des drones dans les combats et dans les recherches d'indices.
• Adepte : un semi-mage qui utilise sa magie pour renforcer ses performances physiques, expert du combat au contact.
• Shaman : un mage spécialisé dans l'invocation des esprits. Excellent soutien dans les combats.
Le jeu se passe dans les années 2050, à Seattle, dans un univers mêlant le cyberpunk et des éléments empruntés au médiéval-fantastique. Il enchaîne les chapitres consacrés aux recherches et aux dialogues et les phases de combat. Entre chaque chapitre, il est possible d'améliorer son équipement (armes, armure, consommables, sorts, programmes informatiques,...) auprès des différents commerçants présents dans le quartier général, une boîte de nuit des Redmond Barrens, le quartier mal famé de la ville.
L'équipe que contrôle le joueur durant chaque chapitre est composée du personnage qu'il a créé et d'alliés temporaires ou plus durables, avec un maximum de quatre personnages.
Les combats sont divisés en tours. À chaque tour, chaque personnage dispose d'un minimum de deux Points d'Action qui lui permettent de se déplacer, d'attaquer, de lancer un sort ou tenter une invocation.
L'intrigue générale est très proche du roman Grille-neurones de N. Findley.
Développement
Le jeu a bénéficié d'un financement participatif via le site Kickstarter : il y a récolté 1 836 447 dollars pour 400 000 demandés.
💡️ Commentaires généraux:
Le studio est parvenu à lever les fonds nécessaire sur le site Kickstarter, son développement est achevé.
Kickstarter est un site de sponsoring de projets permettant - en ce qui concerne les jeux, aux joueurs et aux développeurs de financer le développement de jeux sans le carcan des maisons d'édition. Les studios obtiennent le pré-financement de leur production, les joueurs bénéficient d'avantages proportionnels au montant de leur participation (tarif avantageux, personnalisations, ...) sans garantie de résultat.
Date de sortie prévisionnelle :
Financement bouclé fin avril 2012 (1836K$ sur Kickstarter).
Le jeu est à présent disponible en version Linux.