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Shadowrun Returns devs working on a new Battletech game
Harebrained Schemes, the Seattle-based studio behind the immensely successful crowdfunded Shadowrun games, has announced that it is bringing back the classic robot combat game BattleTech through a new Kickstarter campaign that will launch this Fall.
The studio has successfully funded several games through Kickstarter, including Shadowrun Returns, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, and Shadowrun: Hong Kong. Jordan Weisman, who also created the Shadowrun pen-and-paper RPG game, served as the creative director for those games, and he will be overseeing the new BattleTech game as well.
“Harebrained Schemes is pleased to announce their return to Kickstarter this Fall to partner with backers in co-funding the creation of BattleTech,” Harebrained Schemes said in a statement. “Jordan Weisman, the creator of BattleTech and MechWarrior, is back with the first turn-based BattleTech game for PC in over two decades. Steeped in the feudal political intrigue of the BattleTech universe, the game will feature an open-ended Mercenaries-style campaign that blends RPG ‘Mech and MechWarrior management with modern turn-based tactics.”
While it has been over 20 years since the last BattleTech video game, the series found its way to tabletop gaming as a turn-based tactical warfare game similar to the Warhammer games. It is this style of gameplay that the new BattleTech game will emulate.
“It’s a total glass house”
Harebrained Schemes is a Kickstarter veteran now, and while crowdfunding has been a key part of the studio’s success, Weisman has previously said that the model can have its drawbacks.
“It’s been an exhilarating process working with the audience,” Weisman told PC Gamer in 2013. “It’s a total glass house—very different than the usual development. It’s like a high-wire act with no net; it keeps us very focused and scared to death.”
He added, “When you’re working for a publisher, there’s a very small number of people whose expectations you have to meet in order to get to the consumers and hopefully meet their expectations. In this case, we have 37,000 people who likely have different expectations, and I think the only thing we can say universally is they have very high expectations. That is both really gratifying and enormously scary.”
Image credit: Harebrained Schemes
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