Shadowrun Returns

2011 comes to a close ringing in the new year and with it the beginning of the "Sixth Age". The world is re-awakened to magic and with it the old fairy tales of yore are reborn. Humanity splinters into meta-human races from a phenomenon called Unexplained Genetic Expression (UGE) leading to Dwarfs, Elves, Orcs and even Trolls. Magic and Shamanism is reborn, humanity now able to peer across the veil into the Astral Plane and the spirits within.

However, what world already had didn't go away. Cybernetics and the Matrix grow as man and machine become closer then ever before, sacrificing their essence to bond with metal and project themselves into virtual worlds. Corporations grow in power fighting proxy wars with each other through those that run the shadows. The year is now 2051 and Shadowrun Returns!

Back in the ancient past of the 1990's I played a myriad collection of pen and paper RPGs and one of my favorite ones was Shadowrun. I was always fascinated by the juxtaposition of technology and magic in a futuristic urban setting. So when I saw this game on Kickstarter I was quick to back it. Shadowrun Returns went to become one of greater successes on Kickstarter. The game was released on July 25, 2013 on Steam.

Shadowrun Returns is an isometric 2.5D, over the top, turned based RPG. The game ships with the Seattle campaign ("Dead Man's Switch"), tools to design your own campaign and a content manager that is connect to Steamworks to download others custom campaigns. One of the stretch goals of the Kickstarter was a secondary Campaign in "Berlin" which as of the writing of this review is to be released Jan 2014.

Character creation starts with the standard gender choice, then choice of race: Human, Dwarf, Elf, Troll, and Orc. The choice of race limits how much you can progress in certain skills, humans being the generic "Not good at anything but not bad at anything" standard trope in that regard. Lastly the game presents you with the Shadowrun archetypes: Street Samurai, Adept, Mage, Shaman and Rigger. It also allows you, much like the PnP game, to assign your Karma points anyway you want into your skill trees. Karma is earned by completing objectives in the game and used to assign points in a pretty complex skill tree system. This leads into on my major criticisms of the game. It really doesn't do a good job explaining itself. I played the PnP game so I got a handle on it pretty quickly but I could see it being daunting at first.

Combat is turned based, with a cover system affair that feels a lot like XCOM: Enemy Unknown but no where as unforgiving. Your character gets two Action Points (AP) to use for movement and skills. At first your combat choices are pretty limited as your character and his NPC party members don't have many skills to pick from. As you progress in the game you earn new skills to use and it feels pretty fulfilling. Also in the campaign after a certain point you will be awarded an extra AP allow even more tactical flexibility. However, again the lack of tutorials raises it's ugly head as some of the systems are never explained. For example there is an overwatch system much like XCOM. I didn't even realize this until practically the end of the game.

Graphically the game looks great. There is a lot of small details present in the tile sets that really add to the character of the game along with some nice ambient lighting. Characters looks pretty good and animate decently. Combat and spell effects do the job, not over the top or anything but feel very in line with the game world. One standout is the art and tileset for the Matrix, aka cyberspace. It's stark contrast to the rest of the game is welcome and it feels very different.

Sound and music wise there is little to comment about in the game. The sound design is fitting and serviceable to the setting of the game. The music is pretty forgettable in all honesty, again it does the job. One thing I wish the game had was some voices for the characters. The lack of any voice, even grunts or command acknowledgements, really hurts immersion for me. While I understand the limitations of Kickstarter game budgets for a modern game it comes off as very striking omission.

The campaign, Dead Man's Switch, takes place in Seattle. The campaign taking place in Seattle is important for multiple reasons. Not only is it the defacto setting for the PnP game, but also it was the setting of the 1993 SNES game Shadowrun. The campaign starts out with you, the player, a down and out Shadowrunner getting a vid from an old "friend" Sam Watts. Sam drops quite a bombshell on you. He's dead, and is hiring you to find his killer. As with everything in the Shadowrun universe things go sideways pretty quickly in some pretty interesting ways. You also run across a possibly familiar faces with a cameo from the SNES game's protagonist Jake Armitage. By the end of the 6-8 hours it will take you to play through the Seattle campaign you will have gone to some pretty weird ends to make things right for o' Sam and maybe even save the world?

The writing in the campaign is pretty great and is definitely the highlight of the game for me. Dialog is exactly what Shadowrun game should feel like; gritty, faux-90's cyberpunk. The story is surprisingly good and definitely goes off to places I wasn't expecting. The game presents you dialog that allows a bit of morality choices but as fair as I could tell it really has little effect on the outcome of the game. Also the amount of lore in the game is great and really adds a lot to flesh the world out. I would recommend reading everything and talking to everyone.

I have little comment about the Shadowrun Editor. I fired it up and it looks very serviceable but I haven't gone into any depth with it and I'll leave others to comment upon it. What I am excited about is what comes out of this. I'm really hoping some good campaigns pop out of this and to be shared with the Steamworks Community.

All in all Shadowrun Returns is a pretty great game with some slight flaws. It's also a game that would never have existed without Kickstarter. I hope the success of this game empowers others to make more games like this. It is currently available on Steam for 19.99USD.