Dragonfall Expansion Takes Shadowrun To Berlin

[Karloff]

Dragonfall Expansion Takes Shadowrun To Berlin

It's a whole new campaign, for street samurai with the guts to change Berlin for the better.

Harebrained Schemes is taking its Shadowrun Returns [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/10507-Shadowrun-Returns-Review] to Berlin, in its new Dragonfall expansion. It's up to you to survive the Flux-State that is the Free City of Berlin, but there's something mysterious going on behind the scenes. "As you find yourself drawn into a maze of veiled dangers and strange machinations," says Harebraned, "you will come face-to-face with a grim spectre of the past." That, some würstl and a decent Löwenbräu, and I'm sold; but that's just me.

There are new weapons, cyberware, and insidious enemies stalking your team in this full-length campaign. Plus the campaign editor got an overhaul, making content creation much simpler, which will no doubt please the storytellers out there. Backers get this one for free, but the rest of us pay either $14.99 for the expansion, or $24.99 if you want to buy the main game and Dragonfall together.

January 2014 is the projected release date.

Source: Kickstarter [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1613260297/shadowrun-returns/posts/666832]


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[Sigmund Av Volsung]

I am bit sceptical of the game.

Shadowrun Returns was good, but it was really kind of shallow, especially with the speech specialist talents, which were only used once, and might as well not have existed at all, add to that, a short(relative to other RPGs) campaign and it was a wee bit insubstantial.

Not to mention the BS level of difficulty towards the end(the bit where you have to hack into a security firm, which as it turned out was all for naught pissed me right the fuck off: I had to replay that bit like 7 times before I beat it because I kept getting overrun). But then again, it was sort of like a CRPG, so maybe that level of difficulty is justified, but it was not dependant on your mastery over your specialisation, but more on remembering which enemies are going to spawn where.

Who knows, maybe this expansion will make it better, but I doubt it, it's not to say that it isn't a good game, it's just shallower than what was expected.

 

[maddog015]

I am bit sceptical of the game.

Shadowrun Returns was good, but it was really kind of shallow, especially with the speech specialist talents, which were only used once, and might as well not have existed at all, add to that, a short(relative to other RPGs) campaign and it was a wee bit insubstantial.

Not to mention the BS level of difficulty towards the end(the bit where you have to hack into a security firm, which as it turned out was all for naught pissed me right the fuck off: I had to replay that bit like 7 times before I beat it because I kept getting overrun). But then again, it was sort of like a CRPG, so maybe that level of difficulty is justified, but it was not dependant on your mastery over your specialisation, but more on remembering which enemies are going to spawn where.

Who knows, maybe this expansion will make it better, but I doubt it, it's not to say that it isn't a good game, it's just shallower than what was expected.

I wonder if Harebrained was hoping that the custom made content would fill out whatever people felt was missing from the main campaign.

It's getting added to the queue of games to play. It's free for me, so I'll give it a shot.

 

[dakkster]

I was an early backer of this on Kickstarter. Now I can finally play the damn thing, because I flat out refused to play it without the save anywhere feature that's being added now.

 

[sushkis2]

I have to ask, when was the last time any non WWII game was set in Berlin? Which is kind of cool, but SR jut wasnt that good.

 

[StHubi]

I really liked Shadowrun Returns, but I have been playing the Pen & Paper RPG for over 16 years now - Objectivity is not my game on this topic

Let's hope the writing of this expansion is on the same high level as of the core game. It was probably one of the best written games I have ever played.

 

[Blarg Blargson]

I am bit sceptical of the game.

Shadowrun Returns was good, but it was really kind of shallow, especially with the speech specialist talents, which were only used once, and might as well not have existed at all, add to that, a short(relative to other RPGs) campaign and it was a wee bit insubstantial.

Not to mention the BS level of difficulty towards the end(the bit where you have to hack into a security firm, which as it turned out was all for naught pissed me right the fuck off: I had to replay that bit like 7 times before I beat it because I kept getting overrun). But then again, it was sort of like a CRPG, so maybe that level of difficulty is justified, but it was not dependant on your mastery over your specialisation, but more on remembering which enemies are going to spawn where.

Who knows, maybe this expansion will make it better, but I doubt it, it's not to say that it isn't a good game, it's just shallower than what was expected.

I'm feeling optimistic. I actually enjoyed DMS a lot, in spite of the limited saving feature (glad that's getting changed), and the fact that the basically linear plot meant that all of your dialogue options led you to the same places and investing in charisma was nearly pointless if you weren't a shaman. I think it's because the writing and aesthetics of the game were very good, and the game did a good job of condensing down the tabletop rules into a system that was easy to learn. I think they can only improve on what they have so far, and Dragonfall promises to be a great improvement indeed.

Also, about the run on Telestrian Industries - did you hack the cameras and put people on overwatch by the doors? I found that taking on the corpsec goons as they came in wasn't too tough when you can see them coming AND count on getting in the first hit. The only parts of the game I had a hard time with were the mandatory Matrix sections, because I didn't make my character a decker and the NPC deckers are either underskilled, underequipped, or both.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I wonder if I'll get kicked in the balls again for putting all my points into speech and then never once having to use it.

 

[mattaui]

I have to ask, when was the last time any non WWII game was set in Berlin? Which is kind of cool, but SR jut wasnt that good.

The Shadowrun tabletop RPG has a big following in Germany, so that was an important consideration. I know the original Berlin sourcebook they released for the game in the mid-90s was really interesting.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

I am bit sceptical of the game.

Shadowrun Returns was good, but it was really kind of shallow, especially with the speech specialist talents, which were only used once, and might as well not have existed at all, add to that, a short(relative to other RPGs) campaign and it was a wee bit insubstantial.

Not to mention the BS level of difficulty towards the end(the bit where you have to hack into a security firm, which as it turned out was all for naught pissed me right the fuck off: I had to replay that bit like 7 times before I beat it because I kept getting overrun). But then again, it was sort of like a CRPG, so maybe that level of difficulty is justified, but it was not dependant on your mastery over your specialisation, but more on remembering which enemies are going to spawn where.

Who knows, maybe this expansion will make it better, but I doubt it, it's not to say that it isn't a good game, it's just shallower than what was expected.

I'm feeling optimistic. I actually enjoyed DMS a lot, in spite of the limited saving feature (glad that's getting changed), and the fact that the basically linear plot meant that all of your dialogue options led you to the same places and investing in charisma was nearly pointless if you weren't a shaman. I think it's because the writing and aesthetics of the game were very good, and the game did a good job of condensing down the tabletop rules into a system that was easy to learn. I think they can only improve on what they have so far, and Dragonfall promises to be a great improvement indeed.

Also, about the run on Telestrian Industries - did you hack the cameras and put people on overwatch by the doors? I found that taking on the corpsec goons as they came in wasn't too tough when you can see them coming AND count on getting in the first hit. The only parts of the game I had a hard time with were the mandatory Matrix sections, because I didn't make my character a decker and the NPC deckers are either underskilled, underequipped, or both.

I did, but I had a really good mage who was incredibly close to dying every single time I played that particular end bit, which was fucking annoying as without him I was reduced to a two man team, and since I had picked a street samurai who specialised in shotguns, it was hard to get a hit over medium distances.

The other guy, I think was a soldier, but he was kind of crap with the assault rifle: I picked him solely to be used as a meat shield, as he was quite tanky, but like I said, my char was unsuited for that situation(especially since the amount of enemies spawned towards the end of the section became a bit overwhelming).

Sorry if I am a bit sparse on the details, I played this a few months back, so the memories have gone fuzzy.

But that section annoyed the hell out of me.

 

[Therumancer]

I am bit sceptical of the game.

Shadowrun Returns was good, but it was really kind of shallow, especially with the speech specialist talents, which were only used once, and might as well not have existed at all, add to that, a short(relative to other RPGs) campaign and it was a wee bit insubstantial.

Not to mention the BS level of difficulty towards the end(the bit where you have to hack into a security firm, which as it turned out was all for naught pissed me right the fuck off: I had to replay that bit like 7 times before I beat it because I kept getting overrun). But then again, it was sort of like a CRPG, so maybe that level of difficulty is justified, but it was not dependant on your mastery over your specialisation, but more on remembering which enemies are going to spawn where.

Who knows, maybe this expansion will make it better, but I doubt it, it's not to say that it isn't a good game, it's just shallower than what was expected.

Me, I got irritated by the final battle which seemed designed to punish me for not developing my character in very specific ways. I'll also second that it was shallower than I expected.

I may or may not check out Berlin when it's released, to be honest I liked the old Berlin sourcebook, but the thing is that the entire "city" is supposed to pretty much exist in a state of insane anarchy with cannibal eateries, an "opera" where they murder people in the audience, and similar things, in some ways being a more surreal version of what they turned Gotham into during the old "No Man's Land" storyline for Batman. It will be interesting to see if they did it "right" or made a more straightforward Shadowrun setting out of it. The original idea of Berlin being a sort of "dungeon city" where only the most insane runners would attempt to go in or out... sort of like what they later did to the Renraku Arcology albeit without the straightforward justification of an insane AI if I remember.

Of course, I seem to remember this started a back and forth for a while with the sourcebooks, given that the guy who did Berlin was actually French when you looked into it, and meant it to be something of a mockery of Germany, leading to threats of a German writer firing back when it came to do material on France.... Very old news, I think we're going back to 2E here, but still, one of the more interesting places in the setting, and one I suspect would be hard to do right in this kind of video game since the idea of what amounts to a city wide asylum of semi-functional homicidal psychopaths hidden under an overt veneer of relative normality is hard to do.... "A tip for Shadowrunners in Berlin, never accept tickets to the Berlin Opera, and if you do, never, EVER attend" I don't remember the exact quote, but it was classic stuff.

 

[RoonMian]

I have to ask, when was the last time any non WWII game was set in Berlin? Which is kind of cool, but SR jut wasnt that good.

Well, Freelancer had "New Berlin"?

 

[LordMonty]

Good stuff my backer copy will be mine soon!!! although... i still ain't finished the main game yet save options asaide i'm just so busy atm.