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Game News Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter Update #67: Dragonfall announced, save-anywhere enabled, DRM removed

Infinitron

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Tags: Harebrained Schemes; Shadowrun Returns; Shadowrun: Dragonfall

Although the Shadowrun Returns "Berlin DLC" was promised all the way back during the game's Kickstarter campaign, in this day and age, every new product needs an important-looking press release and a catchy brand name. As such, in their latest Kickstarter update, Harebrained Schemes have officially announced it as Shadowrun: Dragonfall. In addition to being a brand new campaign that takes place in - you guessed it - the Free City of Berlin, it seems the DLC will improve on many of the original campaign's shortcomings, most notably its restrictive checkpoint-based save system. Check out its Mass Effect-ish grimdark logo:

adaafae2b244cdb346dffb3e9ada7dc3_large.jpg

BERLIN. The Flux-State: a stable anarchy enforced by an ever-shifting coalition of megacorps, political factions, and savvy power players. A place where almost anything goes and the right connections can be the difference between success and starvation. Dangerous jobs abound and there’s no better place to earn a quick payday - provided you live long enough to spend it. For you and your team of battle-scarred runners, it’s just another day in the Free City of Berlin.

But a new threat is rising, one that could mean untold chaos and devastation. The only clue: whispers of the DRAGONFALL, a long-forgotten event from the earliest days of the Awakened world. As you find yourself drawn into a maze of veiled dangers and strange machinations, you will come face-to-face with a grim spectre of the past… and alter the course of Berlin’s future.

SHADOWRUN: DRAGONFALL FEATURES
  • Experience a New Full-Length Campaign: Return to the “Tech meets Magic” future of Shadowrun as you and your team of runners get drawn into a treacherous conspiracy. Operating out of an offbeat central hub neighborhood, you’ll choose which missions to accept and how you’ll approach them while navigating the dark underbelly of “the Flux”.
  • An Exciting New Locale: Shadowrun: Dragonfall transports runners to the Free City of Berlin, a thrilling Shadowrun setting full of gorgeous new hi-res environments, a diverse new cast of characters, and a new soundtrack by the composer of the original Sega Genesis Shadowrun game, Sam Powell.
  • Command Your Team: Lead a small team of shadowrunners, each with their own outlook and backstory. Each member of your team is designed to play an interesting role during missions and has a unique set of skills, abilities, strengths, and weaknesses.
  • New Weapons, Cyberware, Enemies & More: Try your hand at the long-range sniper rifle, devastating grenade launcher, or stun-inducing taser. Chrome yourself out in the latest cyberware and take on deadly new enemies - including new magical creatures like gargoyles and fire drakes. Dragonfall brings a host of new items, characters, portraits, and improvements to the Shadowrun Returns experience.
  • Save Anywhere: You can save your progress at any time during the game. This functionality will also be added to the original Shadowrun Returns “Dead Man’s Switch” campaign.
  • New Game Editor Features: A wide range of enhancements to the game editor for community content creators - including a scripting system to better control lighting, tracking mission objectives in the main game UI, placing exploding barrels, and allowing players to input keypad passwords and custom text strings in conversations. In addition, content creators will be able to use all of the new Berlin environment art, items and characters in their own stories along with assets from the original Shadowrun Returns campaign.
Shadowrun: Dragonfall will be released January 2014 for Windows, OSX, and Linux and will be free to Backers. You’ll get the same number of Steam keys you received for the original game via our Backer website and details about how you’ll get your DRM-free version will come in a future update. Dragonfall will launch at $14.99 and we’ll also release the Shadowrun Campaign Pack on the same day. The campaign pack contains the original game and the Dragonfall expansion in one package for only $24.99. We think it’s a great way to get new players into Shadowrun.​

But that's not all! In a previous update, HBS also announced that they had reached an agreement with Microsoft to allow the game to be released DRM-free, finally burying the DRM drama from earlier this year. So it should show up on GOG sometime soon. Now, let's hope they make the game hard enough to justify that new save system. Who knows, Shadowrun Returns may yet have what it takes to be a contender in 2014, the Year of RPG Incline.
 

Lhynn

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This is going to be good, not too sure about the save anywhere feature, id rather just save between fights to avoid save scuming and all those awful practices that come from being too fucking lazy to restart the fight.
 

Roguey

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The women in the pic are pure Roguey-service. That sniper has a permanent spot in my party. :love:

Not sure how that sniper rifle's going to work out. Assault rifles already have a pretty long range, and it seems to me like a weapon with an even longer range will end up making combat even easier. Ideally the campaign will be full of enemies with sniper rifles themselves and combat will require moving from cover to cover to avoid getting blasted.

As I mentioned before, I hope the areas were designed with save-anywhere in mind, not just for more difficulty, but to give us some actual exploration. I get the impression that the decision to place save points only during scene transitions was made early on, resulting in levels that had to be completable within 10-40 minutes.
 

ERYFKRAD

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And where do you thank the guy who posted the news first, O Reaper of the Brofist?
 

ghostdog

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Well, if Berlin turns out to be good, I might just get the whole package.
 
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Hopefully the guy is better at making the soundtrack than the other one, because the music in the old one completely sucked ass. Super dull remix of the SNES music and utterly generic, forgettable background noise.

I don't have much hope, the first game had a dreadful campaign except maybe some missions at the end (although they were linear). Combat is this game has less depth than in a Jeff Vogel game. Characters, setting, and flavor text were vert well written but was corny, especially what they made to Jake Armitage in which they turned a cool, taciturn bad ass into an embarrassing piece of corny fan service.

These developers are mobile game designers, and the few FASA veterans have become as burned out and casual as everyone else. All the latter can do is write dialogue. The rest is like a "f****** iPhone game" to paraphrase Vault Dweller.

I thought foolishly that the user campaigns would make up for it, but in all I've tried the horrid metaness and dialogue make my head pop within 10 minutes, so we'll pass.
 
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Characters, setting, and flavor text were vert well written but was corny

As if the entire Shadowrun setting wasn't corny as hell in the first place.

I played it on SNES and Genesis and I thought it was portrayed as cool, not as utterly retarded and over the top. I think part of it is that they didn't make the characters talk for pages and pages about their emotions in an attempt to mimic Bioware.
 
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Do they plan to make adepts not shit outside of katana/stride?
I just hope they do at least a small overhaul of character creation and its mechanics, that was one of the most underwhelming points of SSR.
SRR had a lot of faults...but I had fun playing it. Hope the modding part is less prosperous in the expansion.
 

Junmarko

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Haha! Save Anywhere listed as a feature, feels like the early 90's all over again. "Dude! No more writing down your save code!"

Nevertheless, I'm glad they are adding this, having no quick-save and minimal auto-saves was immensely inconvenient.
 
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Darth Roxor

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I played it on SNES and Genesis and I thought it was portrayed as cool, not as utterly retarded and over the top.

You should read the Shadows of Europe supplement. It has all sorts of crazy stuff like undead rising in Auschwitz, dragon corp CEOs and downright silly cultural references all around (my favourite probably being the best-known Polish freedom fighter, an ork named Captain Żbik)
 

Coboney

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Why did they wait so long to fix the save system?
Probably took them a while to figure out that people really really cared and decided to put it in the expansion so that the expansion looks all the more appealing to buy.

Presumably the same reason why they waited so long to make a better lighting thing for the editor.
 

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