Shadowrun: Dragonfall Reviews

We’ve rounded up a few more Shadowrun: Dragonfall reviews, mostly confirming the initial good impressions the expansion seems to have garnered.

PC Gamer awards it an 81/100 score, and has really high praise for the campaign’s story.

Thankfully, Dragonfall’s story is superb enough to make up for it all and then some. The gray, moral choices I was forced to make stand side-by-side with the most gut-wrenching dilemmas in any Bioware game, and it’s really the lack of finishing touches and production value that keeps Harebrained Schemes’ best work from being in that same league. The plot is also far less convoluted than the conspiracies-within-conspiracies-within-conspiracies techno thriller presented in Dead Man’s Switch. Dragonfall has its share of twists, but I never found myself losing track of who the actual bad guy was, or who manipulated whom, and to what end.

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I’m going to remember Dragonfall for a long, long time. When the topic of great RPG stories comes up, I’ll mention it in the same breath as Dragon Age or Knights of the Old Republic. Even if you didn’t play, or didn’t enjoy, Dead Man’s Switch, Dragonfall is well worth your time and the extra $20 for the base game, should you not already own it. It may lack the flashiness and cinematic drama of a bigger budget production, but it lacks none of the heart.

Leviathyn, on the other hand, seems fairly disappointed, 6.5/10.

For a game roughly the same length as its predecessor, Shadowrun: Dragonfall is a little bit disappointing. While they managed to nail the style and atmosphere of the Shadowrun setting a second time round, it’s a shame Harebrained Schemes have brought almost nothing new to the table. Where Returns showed the promise of their engine, the ambitious narrative of Dragonfall is constantly pushing up against the constraints of it.

Shadowun: Dragonfall might offer players another fix of its cool cyberpunk-meets-magic RPG formula but it doesn’t try to offer them anything deeper than that. Despite it improving upon the level design and storytelling of its predecessor, Dragonfall fails to improve upon the gameplay surrounding those elements. It pushes the boundaries of the game’s engine yet fails to produce anything truly substantial and unless your love of Shadowrun’s rich universe can overlook these shortcomings, there’s nothing special here.

SpiderDuck, “Buy It”.

Let’s just get to the nitty gritty, Dragonfall is still Shadowrun. If you enjoyed your time with Shadowrun Returns last year, you will absolutely enjoy your time with Dragonfall seven months later. Dragonfall improves the most when it comes to the characters and what they mean to the world presented in the campaign. There are slight overall gameplay improvements, but Harebrained Schemes isn’t changing what works. This new campaign isn’t going to change your mind on Shadowrun Returns, but it’s an absolute must buy for those that want a new experience in the Shadowrun universe.