However Shadowrun fans could play around with it using their editor as player-GMs. Weisman promises a wide variety of assets to create almost any campaign we can think of.
The studio aren't going to turn their editor into some lighter version for the public as they want to keep all that power intact and hand it over to the community to go wild with.
"As for the ‘around the table vibe’ that we’ve talked about – that’s something we’ve played with and yes, it’s tricky,” Weisman told VG247. “For awhile, we toyed with the voice of the Game Master talking directly to you and telling you to do a skill check. We also thought about showing dice rolls."
Shadowrun Returns was born out of a successful Kickstarter campaign, joining many other RPGs.
“Ultimately, we decided that it would be interesting but not necessarily compelling or immersive. However, when we release our editor, player-GMs can try this type of experiment out for themselves," he explained. "Who knows, they may hit on the right way to do it.” Maybe someone will go a Bastion route and have it narrate our actions?
Custom missions or even full-on campaigns are entirely possible when Harebrained release their editor, which will come with a jam=packed library of assets to really create our own environments. They promise you don't need to be a coding savant in order to put together some interesting encounters.
“The tool is extremely deep and powerful and we’re not ‘dumbing it down’ for release to the public,” he said.
"It is the exact same tool we use to create our Seattle and Berlin stories. The tool runs on Macs and PCs and allows players to become game masters and create their own stories in the Shadowrun universe. Our art team has created a wide range of exterior and interior building blocks from which GMs can create an amazing array of environments to set their stories within."
“GMs can then place NPC characters into these environments controlling them and the overall gameplay via an expansive trigger system which doesn’t require any scripting knowledge yet provides amazing power to the designer. Interactive objects, decking, and conversations all use the same trigger system, so these non-combat options can truly be ‘game-changing’ in scope.”
Shadowrun Returns releases on PC and Mac June 26th. It raised over $1.8 million via Kickstarter.
“Shadowrun is alive and well after 24 years because of the fans and players who have kept it going,” added Weisman, “and I fully expect our players to design stories and gameplay in the Shadowrun Returns engine that blows us away – and hopefully keep the universe going for more decades to come." Check out the alpha gameplay below.
