Shadowrun Returns will be released on Steam this June 2013. You can pre-order the Steam version starting this month on April 29th. Steam Workshop will be supported in the game and includes an in-game editor. Linux support via Steam will be added at a later date.
Additionally, Shadowrun Returns will be available to purchase completely DRM (Digital Rights Management) free via the official website of developer Harebrained Schemes, although you will not get the in-game editor. The editor will also not appear for the iOS or Android versions of Shadowrun Returns, although they may be added sometime in the future.
Here is a video showing 20 minutes of Alpha gameplay footage of Shadowrun Returns.
Shadowrun Returns is another incredible Kickstarter success story that has been added to the cap of the gaming industry’s crowd-funding successes. The videogame is being developed by Jordan Weisman, the creator of the Shadowrun tabletop role-playing game for which all past Shadowrun games were based (be it loosely or faithfully) and it tells of a cyberpunk RPG world mixed with fantasy elements. Weisman didn’t have any involvement in the most recent game, 2007’s “Shadowrun” first-person shooter for original Xbox and PC. Following that game’s release, in 2007, the rights to the franchise were sold by Microsoft (following the closure of the 2007 Shadowrun’s developer, FASA Interactive) to a company called “Smith & Tinker” which was set up by Jordan Weisman himself, thus giving the videogame rights of his own franchise back to it’s proper place. Eventually crowd-funding would bloom thanks to Kickstarter, and Weisman decided to start a project for an all-new Shadowrun game that would remain true and faithful to the Tabletop RPG universe he created, yet with the modern trappings that this day-and-age can bring to the table. It would seek to accomplish the vision he’s always had for a Shadowrun videogame.
The Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter project initially sought funding of $400,000, which was exceeded in a scant 48 hours by diehard fans. The next goal was $1.5 million, a goal which if exceeded, Weisman would reward Backers with a Kickstarter “Backer-only” exclusive mission that would fill in the gaps between the stories of the original 1993 SNES Shadowrun with the 1994 Genesis Shadowrun. That goal was eventually reached as well, and the project would cap out with a whopping grand total of $1,835,447 U.S. Dollars earned by the project’s end on April 29th 2012 (with a total of 36,276 Backers!). Round that to $2 million, and the fact that Weisman was able to raise over a million more dollars than the initial goal is phenomenal.
Alongside the development of Shadowrun Returns, is another game which was also successfully funded via the Shadowrun Online Kickstarter project, following the success of the Shadowrun Returns crowd-funding project. This game is an online MMO and is being developed by Cliffhanger Productions. The Kickstarter goal for Shadowrun Online was $500,000, and the goal was slightly exceeded with a total earning of $558,863 from 6,003 total Backers on August 14 2012. A beta for that game will begin in May 2013, and it is being developed for PC, Linux, iOS, Android, Linux, Mac and Ouya platforms.
Shadowrun Returns meanwhile will be released on all those same platforms outside of Ouya.