Shadowrun Returns (2013)
Shadowrun Returns is a 2013 role-playing (rpg) video game made by Harebrained Schemes.
Seattle, 2054. Magic has returned, corporations rule from armored arcologies, and elves and trolls share the sprawl with hackers and street samurai. You are a shadowrunner, a deniable freelancer, pulled into a murder case by a dead friend's final message. Jordan Weisman brings his tabletop setting back as a lean turn-based tactical RPG, with Matrix decking and spellcasting standing beside gunfire. The Dead Man's Switch campaign runs linear and short, but it sets the tone cleanly, and the built-in editor opened the door to a whole wave of community-built stories.
Quick answers
What is Shadowrun Returns about?
Seattle, 2054. Magic has returned, corporations rule from armored arcologies, and elves and trolls share the sprawl with hackers and street samurai. You are a shadowrunner, a deniable freelancer, pulled into a murder case by a dead friend's final message. Jordan Weisman brings his tabletop setting back as a lean turn-based tactical RPG, with Matrix decking and spellcasting standing beside gunfire. The Dead Man's Switch campaign runs linear and short, but it sets the tone cleanly, and the built-in editor opened the door to a whole wave of community-built stories.
When was Shadowrun Returns released?
Shadowrun Returns was released on 25 July 2013.
Who made Shadowrun Returns?
Shadowrun Returns was made by Harebrained Schemes.
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A few thoughts on Shadowrun Returns
Cyberpunk-fantasy lives or dies on atmosphere, and this nails it. Ghost in the Shell shares the same questions about flesh, wire, and identity, while Vangelis's Blade Runner score is the exact rain-slick mood to run it by. For something louder, Deltron 3030 turns the same future into cyberpunk hip-hop.
Stories where magic and machinery rebuild the body
Seattle's shadowrunners carry cyberware and spells in the same body, a fusion Shadowrun Returns treats as ordinary. Neuromancer and Ghost in the Shell built the template for minds jacked into machines long before this game's Matrix runs. Fullmetal Alchemist swaps circuitry for alchemy, its automail limbs standing in for cyberdecks, while Phoenix follows bodies rebuilt across centuries by science instead of sorcery.
Synth and industrial tracks for a corporate future
Shadowrun Returns opens on a Seattle run by megacorporations and hidden agendas, the exact unease these records were built to score. Blade Runner's synths and Deltron 3030's cyborg narration both come from cyberpunk's first wave. Muse's Black Holes and Revelations and Simulation Theory update the same paranoia about surveillance and control for a newer decade, while The Prodigy's breakbeats keep the whole thing feeling dangerous.