Originally titled Shadowrun Online and born from a successful Kickstarter campaign, Shadowrun Chronicles: Boston Lockdown is closing in on a release date on Steam. The game sounds similar in a turn-based perspective to Shadowrun Returns, but we’ll know soon when the Darkain Arts Gamers crew hopefully gets some hands on time with the release.
The game sounds like a unique concept with potentially a game hub area where you can interact with other players in a social setting, but a more X-Com like setup for missions themselves. As the original title suggests, the game is meant to be MMO like, but not in the traditional sense. Mostly it seems you can join a group to play missions in a co-op sense. The whole concept sounds quite ambitious, going as far to note ideas like missions being taken by others if your team of “Runners” don’t get to them first.
All of this sounds fantastic and interestingly what little I remember of the original pen and paper game. There does seem to be a large mix of information out there and I’m not positive what all will show up in the final game, so we’ll stick with the details below noted from the games Steam page.
Featuring
- Run and Gun! Gripping and deadly tactical turn-based combat in true Shadowrun style: Choose from a wide array of skills groups, magic, technology and weapons to survive!
- Real consequences! If you lose team-members on a mission, they stay dead. If you don’t pick up a mission in time, someone else will have done the job. Are you tough enough to survive the streets?
- Teamwork! Build up your team of runners or join with other players in live co-op to find the best combination of skill, magic and technology for survival.
- You’ll never run alone! Team up with friends for your next run or swap stories with other runners in the hangout. Take your friend’s characters with you into a mission even when they are not online.
- Every move counts! Dive behind cover, find alternate routes with clever use of your skills, send your drones or spirits into battle and use any weapon at your disposal to make it out alive.
- Be who YOU want to be! Create your individual Shadowrunner in a completely level-free character system from over 60 different combat and non-combat skills, unique backgrounds and five metahuman races. Start a muscle-packed former Troll bouncer and become an expert Rigger, sending your drones into combat or complement your spell slinging mage with the abilities of a skillful sniper. The choice is yours!
- Gear up! Employ a variety of armor, augmentations, cyberware, magic and of course tons of weapons! Lob a grenade at your enemies, blast them with a mana ball or pass them unnoticed by hacking their security systems. Over 50 different enemies from vicious gangers to combat drones and corporate wagemages await!
- Shape the future! Developed jointly with the tabletop RPG books your actions in the game will shape the future of the whole Shadowrun universe!
That last part about shaping the future of the Shadowrun universe seems to be the big key feature that ties this whole MMO aspect together. What that could potentially mean is that how gamers approach the missions presented, one of the corporations in Shadowrun could be taken down. Currently that’s just a theory. This is certainly an ambitious project and we’ll hopefully get to look deeper into what Shadowrun Chronicles has become. It certainly sounds wonderful! Shadowrun Chronicles: Boston Lockdown will be released on April 29th on Steam.
