Harebrained Schemes are returning to their Shadowrun Return’s DLC, Dragonfall, and making it into a standalone release they’re calling Shadowrun: Dragonfall – Director’s Cut. The release has given the team time to go over its mechanics, music, artwork, heck, even it’s gore and give them a polish up. Which in the case just made a bit of smear.
In a recent Kickstarter update Mike McCain, dragonfall’s game director, detailed the rebuilt visuals of the cyberpunk RPG.
“Steven and our engineer Sheridan implemented completely new systems for blood splatter effects, directional deaths (characters used to only be able to fall in one direction when dying), dismemberment, and possibly-slightly-over-the-top-gibs upon critical-hit deaths,” McCain writes. The new systems mean a successful crit with a shotgun now causes your enemies to pop into a chunky blood confetti.
See some of the changes in this trailer:
The combat UI’s been greatly improved, too. The system’s been made clearer to “show you each potential target’s status.” What this means in practice is that “you’ll see a different targeting disc beneath enemies depending on whether you have a “clear shot” vs. if they are in cover.” There’s also now more information available when you mouse over someone.
Armour’s now better represented, “white “pips” show how armoured an enemy is. “Each attack that hits now includes quick animated feedback on how much armor was applied against the damage being dealt, how much armor (if any) was stripped by special attacks, and how much damage was done.”
Something that I welcome is the new HUD Harebrained have designed. Before your item specific abilities were hidden away in sub menus. That’s no longer the case with the new HUD. It’s been designed to take advantage of widescreen monitors and so presents all the information you need across the bottom of the screen, getting rid of those dastardly sub menus.
There’s been a huge amount changed within the game’s underlying systems, such as critical hits, armour mitigation, and AI. You can read about them in this Kickstarter update.
In a previous update Andrew McIntosh, Lead Writer revealed that the standalone release of Dragonfall will feature new missions that go into the personal lives of three of your companions: Glory, Eiger, and Blitz. Completing them earns you “unique rewards,” explains McIntosh. “Blitz, for example, can gain the ability to corrupt hostile IC in the Matrix, forcing it to fight with him rather than against him.”
One final new feature is crew advancement. “Because Eiger, Glory, Dietrich, and Blitz are their own people, we aren’t giving you complete control over their character sheets; Eiger will always be a deadly ranged combatant, and Dietrich will never decide to give up magic and embark on an exciting new career as a decker. Instead, we’re implementing a system that will allow you to choose one of two all-new,unique enhancements for each of your companion characters every time they advance in skill.” It’s a little like levelling in Xcom where you drive a soldier down a particular career path by selecting between two options.
An example of one ability you’ll gain access to is Dragon’s Breath. It lets Eiger fire “a round from her shotgun, penetrating armor and setting opponents on fire. Or you could give her the ability to fire an Interdiction round from her sniper rifle: a discarding-sabot HTI shot that completely ignores armor.”
Shadowrun: Dragonfall – Director’s Cut’s release date has been set for 18 September and you can pick it up through Steam. If you already bought the DLC then you’ll get access to all these updates for free.