The year is 2058. Following an event known as the Awakening, magic has returned into the world. Native American shamans and elves reclaimed a vast area known as Salish-Shidhe, located around the free city of Seattle. A small team of shadowrunners - mercenaries working for powerful corporations - is brutally attacked in the wilderness. The massacre is captured in video and broadcast in the news. One of the slain shadowrunners, Michael, had a brother named Joshua. Arriving in Seattle, Joshua begins to investigate his brother’s death. He must find out who killed Michael, and what was the nature of the shadowrun job he was carrying out.
Shadowrun is an action-oriented role-playing game based on the pen-and-paper RPG by FASA. It is entirely different from the SNES adaptation of the same license. In the beginning of the game, the player selects a character class for Joshua, choosing between a samurai, a decker, or a gator shaman, who specialize in combat, cyberworld, and magic, respectively. The game is fairly open-ended; the player navigates Joshua through predominantly urban overhead areas, talking to characters and gathering information.
The player can hire characters to join the party; however, only one character can be directly controlled by the player. Combat is action-based; characters can use melee weapons, firearms (with expendable ammunition), or cast magic. “Karma”, an equivalent of experience points, is awarded for killing enemies and completing quests. Karma points can be allocated by the player manually to increase the character’s parameters.
Certain characters can also enter the Matrix, a virtual network accessed through cyberterminals. Matrix navigation is done from over-the-shoulder third-person view. The player can upgrade and customize Joshua’s cyberdeck, allowing him to hack through encrypted systems more easily and store data obtained from the Matrix. Nodes and ICs will try to protect the data, attacking the virtual representation of the character and trying to force him to log out of the system.
