Shadowrun: Hong Kong

Shadowrun: Hong Kong
File:ShadowrunHongKongBoxArt.jpg Cover Art
Developer(s)	Harebrained Schemes
Publisher(s)	Harebrained Schemes
Director(s)	Mitch Gitelman Mike McCain
Producer(s)	Chris Klimecky
Designer(s)	Trevor King-Yost Kevin Maloney Tyler Carpenter Connor Monahan
Programmer(s)	Garret Jacobson Brenton Malinski
Artist(s)	Mike McCain Chris Rogers David Nash
Writer(s)	Andrew McIntosh Mitch Gitelman Tyler Carpenter
Composer(s)	Jon Everist
Series	Shadowrun
Engine	Unity
Platforms	Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux
Release date(s)	August 20, 2015
Genre(s)	Tactical role-playing game
Mode(s)	Single-player

Shadowrun: Hong Kong is a turn-based tactical role-playing video game set in the Shadowrun universe. It was developed by Harebrained Schemes, who previously developed Shadowrun Returns and its standalone expansion, Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut. It includes a new single-player campaign and also shipped with a level editor that lets players create their own Shadowrun campaigns and share them with other players.

On January 13, 2015, Harebrained Schemes launched a Kickstarter campaign in order to fund additional features and content they wanted to add to the game, but determined would not have been possible with their current budget. The initial funding goal of $100,000 was met in only a few hours. The Kickstarter campaign ended on February 17 and received a total of $1,204,726.

The game was developed with an improved version of the engine used with Shadowrun Returns and Dragonfall. Harebrained Schemes decided to develop the game only for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux, so that they did not have to factor in the hardware limitations of tablets, as they did with their previous Shadowrun games. The game was released worldwide on August 20, 2015.

An extended edition, featuring a new campaign, a developer commentary, and bug fixes for the original game, was released on February 5, 2016. The update was released for free for everybody who owned the original game.

Gameplay

The game features isometric graphics, with 3D models for characters.

Combat

Combat is turn based, with the player controlling the actions of their team followed by the enemies taking their actions. All characters can act based on their action point (AP). Characters start with a base of 2 AP per turn but can temporarily gain or lose AP based on abilities, spells or items used on them. AP is used on such actions as moving, attacking an enemy, reloading a firearm, or using a spell or item. Any AP that is not used by the end of the player's turn is forfeited.

Plot

The game is set in 2056, within the Hong Kong Free Enterprise Zone, a city which is effectively controlled directly by the corporations. Unlike the previous games, the player has a backstory tied to other characters. The player was once an orphan on the streets of Seattle, along with their best friend Duncan when they were taken in by a foster father known as Raymond Black. After living with him for much of their childhood, the player eventually left Raymond and Duncan, before getting in trouble with the mega corporations and being imprisoned. Other characters include Duncan Wu, the player's childhood ork foster brother; Gobbet, a young ork rat shaman; and Is0bel, a dwarf decker.

Shortly after being released, the player receives a message from Raymond urgently asking them to come to Hong Kong to help him. As he says his time is running out, the cutscene depicts a masked man and some thugs entering a shop and opening fire on Raymond and his associates.

The player then travels to Hong Kong meeting with their foster brother Duncan and his superior officer Carter. The three agree to investigate Raymond's mysterious message and noting that he has not come to the rendezvous, traverse through the docks looking for him. They soon meet a group of shadowrunners—including Gobbet and Is0bel. Upon meeting them it is revealed that Raymond had hired them for protection, but shortly afterwards the Hong Kong Police Force ambushes, killing all but the player, Duncan, Gobbet, and Is0bel. After escaping it is revealed that an APB has been put out on the survivors, with Duncan also having his Police ID revoked, turning him into a criminal as well. The four survivors manage to escape to Heoi, a small boat village built on the outskirt of the Walled City: an overcrowded, nightmarish slum built on the ruins of the old one. In Heoi, they go to meet their fixer, the Yellow Lotus Triad crime boss, Kindly Cheng. Although Cheng is displeased by the presence of wanted persons, she agrees to arrange the removal of the player and Duncan's SINs, effectively deleting them from systems worldwide, making them lawless, but hiding them from the authorities. She goes on to say that Raymond had been in Heoi to arrange for the shadowrunner team as protection: he had wanted to go inside the Walled City for unknown reasons. In exchange, the player and Duncan must work alongside Gobbet and Is0bel as shadowrunners working for Kindly Cheng, who acts as their fixer. Since it becomes clear that the HKPF is acting on behalf of someone else, Cheng agrees to investigate who has been trying to kill them and what happened to Raymond.

Following this, the player works on various runs for Cheng ranging from solving mysteries, to providing sabotage and espionage to corporations. Along with Gobbet and Is0bel, there are two other characters that can be recruited—Gaichu, a ghoul samurai, can be recruited through a mission, and Racter, a rigger, can be recruited by talking to him belowdecks in the player's ship-house. During the game it is revealed that the people in Heoi, including the player and their team, have been suffering recurring nightmares, all of them different in some way, but all involving teeth.

As the game progresses, Cheng and the team finds out that Raymond was captured by an unknown man (referred to as 'Plastic Face Man' on account of his cyberware) on behalf of Josephine Tsang, the CEO of Tsang Mechanical Services and member of Hong Kong's ruling Executive Council. It is then revealed that Raymond is actually Josephine's son, Edward Tsang, and that he had worked with her to construct the new Walled city in the 2010s. It becomes apparent that Josephine also orchestrated the APB and kidnapping, and after finding out Raymond's location from the Plastic Faced Man, the team assaults Tsang's headquarters and rescues Raymond. During this time the nightmares the player suffers become increasingly disturbing, implying that something terrible is coming.

Raymond reveals that many years ago, he had learned to create devices that could manipulate qi; the force of magic and luck, noting that places predominant with positive qi would become prosperous with good fortune. During a refugee crisis in Hong Kong, Raymond and Josephine came up with an idea to recreate the Walled City around an enormous qi machine dubbed 'Prosperity'. The machine would filter the negative qi into positive, improving the fortune of those within the Walled City and uplifting the less fortunate with prosperity. However, shortly after construction of the machine and city was finished, the machine became 'stuck' on an unknown entity from astral space, causing the qi to turn even more toxic. Despite Raymond's pleas, Josephine claimed that the device was too expensive to salvage, and the device was abandoned, and with the qi becoming even worse than it was, the Walled city devolved into a nightmarish slum. It is later revealed that Josephine has been deliberately siphoning whatever good qi came out of the device for her own company, propelling it to success while leaving those in the Walled City destitute. Edward eventually ran to Seattle, and lived his life under the name Raymond Black, before suffering nightmares related to the Walled City. Realizing that whatever entity that had broken the machine was now attempting to enter reality, Raymond had decided to return to shut it down himself.

After arriving in Heoi, it becomes clear that the astral entity is demonic Yama King Qian Ya: The Queen of a Thousand Teeth, and that she is the source of the nightmares caused as she breaks into reality to become ruler of the Walled City. With Qian Ya about to succeed, the team and Raymond then makes their way through the Walled City to its heart, fighting crazed citizens, demons and elements of Tsang's security force attempting to stop them. The player and the team eventually reaches Prosperity where they are confronted by Qian Ya. The team then defeats the Yama King, casting her back where she came from, before Raymond destroys the machine once and for all. With the threat gone, the team and Raymond return to Heoi.

In the game's epilogue, it is revealed that the madness that gripped the Walled City was written off as the events of a drug lab accident causing mass hallucinations. With the machine destroyed, Josephine can no longer siphon the qi, and her company is eventually bought out. If the player had found evidence of her misdeeds in her headquarters, then she is arrested and sent to jail, where she later hangs herself. It is also mentioned that the player continues to operate out of Heoi as a shadowrunner without an APB on their head, now undisturbed by dreams.

Characters

Duncan Wu: Combat specialist with abilities for non-lethal takedowns. Wu is the player's childhood friend and has become an officer at the Lone Star law enforcement agency in his adulthood. Devoted to his fallen superior officer Carter, Duncan is also hellbent on finding his foster father Raymond Black, whom he believes to be alive despite claims that suggest otherwise.

Gobbet: Ork shaman who follows the Rat. Accompanied by her pet rats Madness and Folly, Gobbet guides the player through Hong Kong sewers to Heoi, where they seek refuge from Hong Kong police after their run-in with the law enforcement agency. Gobbet grew up on a floating wreckage off the coast of Hong Kong, where her former comrades fell under the influence of a magical artifact that corrupted the avatar of the Rat and subjugated her friends.

Is0bel: A dwarven decker who grew up in the Walled City, where she suffered severe poverty. With the help of a friend, she had her previous memories of the Walled City stored in a memory chip, the reclamation of which caused her depression and sorrow.

Racter: A rigger of Russian origin, Racter came to Hong Kong after a brief stint in Berlin alongside Lucky Strike (who was an NPC in Shadowrun: Dragonfall). Racter is accompanied by a walker-type drone named Koschei, which is a reference to the immortal villain in Russian folklore. A fervent follower of transhumanism, Racter believes that human emotions will be transcended via rigorous application of reason and technology. Due to a childhood accident, his lower half is fully mechanical but this caused him to function normally, leading to his belief that the phenomenon of Essence (which allows people to use magic) is overrated. His drone Koschei, following its mythical namesake, can be fully restored even following severe damage that'd kill other drones.

Gaichu: A former Red Samurai, Gaichu was infected by HMVV virus, which mutated him into a sentient ghoul. Cast out by his former order due to his loss of humanity, Gaichu became a mercenary, who still adhered his code of honour and maintained his sentience by resisting urges of wanton cannibalism. He only eats his contracted victims and prepared his suppers in accordance to his culinary rituals. Gaichu is constantly hunted by his former order, whom he believes to be inferior to his newfound state.

Kindly Cheng: A triad boss and the team's fixer, Cheng is also a "Straw Sandal", a local middle-manager in Hong Kong's sprawling criminal world. After the death of her previous runners, Nightjar and Gutshot, Cheng replaces them with the player character and Duncan Wu, who are enlisted into her service in return for Cheng's erasure of the pair's SINs. Cheng is ruthless and abrasive but puts a great deal in loyalty and tradition. Following the completion of the campaign, Cheng attains a promotion and leaves her status as Straw Sandal to her previously-recalcitrant aide, Strangler Bao.

Raymond Black: Raymond is a foster father to the player and Duncan Wu, raising them from childhood and steering them away from a criminal life. For unspecified reasons, the player character abandons Black and Wu to pursue a life of his/her own. Through the events of the game, it is revealed that Raymond Black is an assumed identity for Edward Tsang, son of the influential Hong Kong figure Josephine Tsang, as well as a renowned architect. Black feels remorse for the eventual corruption of his Prosperity Project and is determined to rectify his failings.

Music

Jon Everist served as the audio director and sound designer for the game, along with composing the game's soundtrack. IGN praised the score, saying "Good soundtracks aren't always good indicators of good games, but it's happily the case with Shadowrun: Hong Kong. The artistry of composer Everist's work reveals itself in the opening titles, and maintains an atmosphere of subdued mystery through character creation and beyond - spilling over into the first conversations and battles effortlessly and memorably."

Reception

It has a score of 81% on Metacritic. Gamer Headlines awarded it 8 out of 10, saying "The combat, the dialogue, the music, everything that we have come to expect from a Shadowrun video game is in Shadowrun: Hong Kong." PC World awarded it four out of five stars, saying "Shadowrun: Hong Kong isn't the best RPG Harebrained Schemes has put out, but it's still a great game in its own right." PC Gamer awarded it 70%, saying "Regardless, Shadowrun Hong Kong is a spectacular story of deceit and poisonous evil that will lure you through the most indulgent settings yet seen in the cRPG renaissance. For the price, the scale is giddying, but Shadowrun is starting to cry out for innovation—these are new (quite excellent) assets and a fresh script retrofitted to a two-year-old game." IGN awarded it a score of 8.0 out of 10, saying "Shadowrun: Hong Kong doesn't sport many new elements, but it delivers an enjoyable tactical RPG experience nonetheless."

External links

• Official website