Hairbrained Schemes’ attempt to transpose the cyberpunk and magic world of Shadowrun to the video game realm once more proved to be rather excellent. A cracking story and a robust tool for creating new games – I just wished the campaign wasn’t over so quickly.
But it’s returning again, as games with “Returns” in the title are wont to do. Leaving Seattle to explore Berlin, Shadowrun’s second campaign was initially going to be modest in size, but increased ambition has led to a delay. Once slated for an October release, it’s now been pushed back to January.
In a post on the Hairbrained Schemes blog, the developer cited fan feedback as one of the main reasons why it’s decided to expand the new campaign to proper expansion proportions. We can expect the romp to be closer to the size of Dead Man’s Switch, which makes me exceedingly happy.
While no specific details have been teased, Hairbrained Schemes is promising all the right things. Berlin will be less linear that its forebearer, with more options for what runs you do and when you do them, as well as different factions to work for. The poor NPC shadowrunners had nothing to say whatsoever in Dead Man’s Switch, but their German counterparts will be fleshed out, which is quite a relief.
New equipment, improved Physical Adept powers and more magic beasties are also being squeezed in, so there’s no dearth of changes being made.
For the tinkerers and world builders, Berlin’s content will also be made available in the editor once you purchase it. I was taking that as a given, but it’s nice to see confirmation.
On top of the work being done on Berlin, Hairbrained Schemes is also continuing to stamp out bugs in the main game, and is investigating the possibility of changing the absurdly restrictive save system, though I wouldn’t get your hopes up.
I can’t deny that news of the delay made me a tad mopey, but even more shadowrunning is something I can definitely get behind. What are your hopes and dreams for the neo-noir German adventure?