SHADOWRUN RPG trilogy released on console

It's taken a remarkable amount of time, but the Shadowrun RPG trilogy has finally arrived on console. Shadowrun Trilogy: Console Edition launches today on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox S/X and Nintendo Switch, as well as Xbox Game Pass.

Despite being called a trilogy, these three game are actually independent, self-contained titles. In each game you create a new character in the Shadowrun setting - think of a mash-up of Dungeons & Dragons and cyberpunk, with fantasy races and magic existing in a technologically-advanced near-future - and then embark on a story packed with puzzles, companion characters, dialogue and turn-based tactical combat.

The three games are Shadowrun Returns (aka Dead Man's Switch), Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Shadowrun: Hong Kong. Each game takes around 15-20 hours to complete, rather more if you go for a completionist playthrough, and they are all well worth your time.

Shadowrun: Hong Kong

2056. A youngster from Seattle, raised in tough conditions and left behind when their foster-father, Raymond Black, moved to Hong Kong, is summoned to a meeting with him. Also attending is Duncan Wu, another orphan raised by Black. The meeting turns out to be a trap set by corporate police. Soon both of Black's wards are on the run. Their only hope is a disreputable triad boss, who agrees to help them on the condition they accept a new life as shadowrunners in their employ.

Hong Kong is the third game in the Shadowrun Returns series of games, following on from Dead Man's Switch (2013) and Dragonfall (2014). Like those games, Hong Kong is an isometric roleplaying game where you create and develop your own character, interact with others and carry out missions using tactics of stealth, frontal assault or hacking (or some combination of the three).

If you've played the previous two games things will be familiar, bordering on the identical. The game is bigger than the original game and perhaps matches Dragonfall in size. The story, which is more personal and complex to the player, is actually stronger, as is the writing. The rich background of the pen-and-paper Shadowrun roleplaying game is called upon to provide depth and backstory to the setting, which works pretty well.

Combat is still turn-based, tactical and fun. The other key mechanic, decking or hacking, is much-improved. The original decking mechanic was a bit dull but it's now been replaced by a new version in which you have to stealthily move through the Matrix to find the information you are after. Once you reach your objective you have to use a key-memorisation routine to actually get the info. Failure at any point triggers a response from the automated security systems. It's an entertaining way of handling hacking, certainly a big improvement on the previous two titles, but it also feels a little more cumbersome and time-consuming, especially when most objectives can be achieved through combat or dialogue instead.

The characters are highly memorable this time time around, with your band of adventurers consisting of Duncan Wu, a tough fighter with a chip on his shoulder; a genius dwarf hacker named Is0bel and an orc mage named Gobbet. Optional additions to the party include Racter, a fanatical transhumanist rigger living in the cargo hold of a grounded boat (which serves as your party's HQ). It's the strongest cast assembled so far for a Shadowrun game, with the characters each having fully-fleshed-out backstories and motivations for doing what they do.

The main mission hub is a floating criminal town, which is great. Running across the huge map between your base and the subway does get a little old, however.

For the unimaginative, Hong Kong does pretty much the same stuff as Dragonfall and the original Dead Man's Switch, so if you really liked those games, get this one. It isn't perfect, however.


First up, the game felt a little easier that is predecessors on the equivalent difficulty level. It definitely required less constant updating of equipment or armour than the previous games. I only upgraded my gun to a new one once, and I updated my armour only twice in over 15 hours of gaming. Despite this, enemies remained relatively unchallenging throughout and even the end-of-game boss (who you cheekily have to kill three times to make sure they're actually dead) was a relative pushover. If you want more of a challenge, Hong Kong may not really provide it.

Secondly, the developers went back to Kickstarter to ask for more money to make a bigger and deeper game. They definitely made a bigger game, with some truly huge environments and more NPCs in each area. However, there isn't a lot more actual content. The game takes roughly the same amount of time to complete as Dragonfall, there aren't much more quests and the number of talkable-to NPCs and interactive elements in each location remains fairly low. A struggle of the series has been that it's fairly sparse in terms of things to actually do in the game apart from to follow the main story. There isn't a lot going on in terms of optional missions or little moments of side-flavour. What is there is excellent, well-written and atmospheric, but it's having to support quite a lot of time when you're doing nothing more than running across the huge hub area for the fiftieth time.

If Hong Kong (****) is pushing the limits of the game engine and design to breaking point, at least it remains mostly entertaining when doing so. It's a well-designed, well-written and fun game which is certainly well worth playing and doesn't outstay its welcome. However, I hope it is the last game in the series on this engine and future Shadowrun games will be a little more ambitious and rich in content. It struck me while playing Satellite Reign (which came out a week after Hong Kong) that if the designers of the two games could join forces and combine the gorgeous Satellite Reign engine with the combat and writing of the Shadowrun team, they could produce something really impressive. Hong Kong is available now on PC from Steam.

Shadowrun Returns: Dragonfall

Forty years ago the great dragon Feuerschwinge went on a rampage across Germany, destroying vast areas of land. It was finally killed by the Luftwaffe, working in concert with a dragon-slaying scientist named Vauclair. This event, the Dragonfall, was soon overshadowed as other, even greater disasters threatened humanity.

A band of shadowrunners in Berlin uncover evidence that Feuerschwinge is not dead, and may soon return to destroy the Flux-State. They also discover that something is wrong in the Matrix, with deckers dying whilst trying to access information related to the dragon. The shadowrunners may soon hold the fate of Berlin, and possibly the wider world, in their hands.

Dragonfall is the first expansion to last year's Shadowrun Returns. Calling it an expansion is to actually do it a disservice: it is a larger, more satisfying and better-written game than its forebear. It clocks in at between 15 and 20 hours in length (compared to the original's 10) and addresses most of the first game's technical issues as well as its creative ones.

Once again you start off creating a new character from scratch (you can't port over your character from Dead Man's Switch, the original base campaign) and receiving a message from an old friend. This time you team up with an established band of runners trying to carry out a heist at a remote mansion. Needless to say, things go wrong and soon your band of heroes or, more accurately, morally ambiguous protagonists are laying low at their safehouse. After initial resistance, you manage to take command of the band and have to find out what happened at the mansion, who wants you dead and what the hell is going on. Unlike the original game, you have a full band of runners who accompanies you through the game (though you can still recruit more skilled - but expensive - runners for hire if you really want). This immediately leads to much richer characterisation and character interplay, with you able to check in with your team between missions, learn more about them and help them to deal with their own problems.

Early in the game you are floundering in the dark, so have to take on side-missions to raise funds to hire a data expert to work out what's happening. This gives early missions a sense of freeform structure, with you both heading off to other parts of the city on missions and helping out in the deprived neighbourhood where your base is located. The neighbourhood is home to all manner of individuals and taking the time to get to know them early on pays off later, when you can ask them for aid or get additional missions from them. The game is still linear, but it hides its linearity much better than the original campaign, with you able to tackle missions in a variety of different orders. Completing runs gives you karma points which you can use to upgrade your main character's skills. Again, success is not dependent on combat and, indeed, resolving situations without resorting to guns can give you more karma points then wading in and shooting everything in sight (though this also works).

Dragonfall is a more confident, assured game than its forebear. The writing is stronger, the dialogue smarter and funnier ("Can you sing?" "I was the frontman for a punk band. No, I cannot sing,") and the characters are much more complex, messier people. The game acknowledges that people who'd rather hang out in grotty bars and risk getting killed for a living are likely to have severe issues, and exploits that to provide some rich (and occasionally disturbing) backgrounds. The game offers up a lot of moral quandaries but these are often even nastier and more difficult to deal with than the previous game's, with plenty of moments when it feels you are trying to make the least-worst choice rather than a 'good' one.

The better writing (and the original was pretty good) accompanies some very wise gameplay improvements from the first game. You can now save anywhere, with both quicksave and regular saving options on top of the autosaves. You can even save mid-combat. This eases frustration in the later, epic-length battle sequences. These improvements are also retrofitted into the original Dead Man's Switch campaign. The game also takes you out of turn-based mode once all the enemies in battle are dead rather than forcing you to laboriously move around locations character-by-character, which gets old quickly. The decking sequences in cyberspace are also more optional than necessary, making tasks easier rather than them being mandatory.

On the weaker side of things, the game is still focused on combat. There's more ways to avoid it than before and more satisfying conversation options, but almost all of your skills are based on their value in combat. Given that the pen-and-paper Shadowrun RPG is based more around small-scale heists, trying to extract information without the enemy ever being aware of your presence and fighting in the shadows, Dragonfall's emphasis on combat and massive explosions over stealth is a bit odd. There's also the fact that, for the second game in a row, you are trying to save the world, which is much higher stakes than normal for the setting. At least this time around the plot ties in with a core part of Shadowrun lore and is set up from the off, rather than Dead Man Switch's abrupt and unconvincing stakes escalation in its closing hour or so.

Dragonfall (****½) is not flawless, but it builds on the impressive foundations of Shadowrun Returns to deliver a well-written, compelling adventure. Much-improved gameplay systems make the game far more rewarding, with some very memorable characters and very satisfying combat. It is available now via Steam.

Details emerge on SHADOWRUN: DRAGONFALL

Harebrained Schemes have released some new info on the first major expansion to their recent hit RPG, Shadowrun Returns. Formerly entitled Berlin, the new expansion has now been renamed Shadowrun: Dragonfall, though it will still be predominantly set in Berlin.

In addition to the name change, the expansion will feature upgrades to the engine, including the much-requested ability to save anywhere (this feature will also be patched back into Shadowrun Returns itself). The expansion will differ in format from the linear main game and will instead be based around hubs where, as well as pursuing the main storyline, the player will be able to pursue a large number of optional side-missions.

Shadowrun: Dragonfall will be released in January 2014.