hadowrun has had an exciting year, with Jordan Weisman, the creator of Shadowrun, launching a wildly successful Kickstarter topping near two million dollars with Shadowrun Returns. Now Kickstarter sees the launch of Shadowrun Online from Austrian based Cliffhanger Productions, who have already teamed up with Harebrained and Catalyst to create the Shadowrun Universe at www.shadowrun.com.
While Shadowrun Returns is focused primarily on providing a great single-player adventure experience, Shadowrun Online—like the tabletop—is all about experiencing the awesome world and gritty atmosphere of Shadowrun together with friends in tactical but fluid turn based combat. Details on the project can be found at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1964352341/shadowrun-online.
Cliffhanger Productions is taking its game to the community to fund, launching an ambitious Kickstarter campaign. This ensures that Shadowrun Online remains under the creative control of Cliffhanger, while offering the fans to participate like never before. “Our whole game concept has the fans at its heart,” said Jan Wagner, Managing Director of Cliffhanger Productions. “From our unique player driven plotline to connecting the community on the Shadowrun Universe website directly with the game, we want to bring games back where they belong: To the people who play them.”
Cliffhanger is teaming up with creative talent from Catalyst Game Labs and Hare Brained Schemes as well as previous Shadowrun authors, coordinating on story elements and pooling writing talent. That cooperation will lead to allowing players to directly affect the ongoing tabletop storyline through their game play of Shadowrun Online and also connect to the Shadowrun Returns plot! "I think coordination between the different Shadowrun products is important,” said Jason Hardy, Shadowrun Line Developer for the tabletop RPG. “I've been really pleased at how open the different parties have been to pooling cool ideas and coming up with ways to interweave plot lines to make the playing experience as awesome as possible."
The online game will available for the browser on PC and Mac as well as Android Tablets and iPads, using the Unity3D engine to create high quality graphics and visual effects.
In Shadowrun Online players take on missions alone or together in the dystopian world of the 2070s, ranging from hustling a local Ork gang, to stealing valuable cargo from a ghoul-infested warehouse, through infiltrating a remote megacorp research lab to sabotage a top-secret project.
Players will meet and mingle in social hubs and (in)famous establishments, to form runner teams, and pick up missions. Runs will take place on beautifully detailed 3D maps, involving combat, stealth, and strategy.
Different characters will perceive the world differently, and be able to interact with different parts of the world, from tactical overlays to augmented reality or assensing the spirit world.
