10 Video Game "Remakes" That Changed EVERYTHING
7. Shadowrun
Starting life as a classic table top game, the sci-fi adventure world of Shadowrun has had a few video game adaptations over the years and most of them at least made sense. For example, the first was for Super Nintendo and was decently well received, using the roleplaying genre in a way that made the game feel like a reasonable adaptation of the universe.
How exactly Shadowrun became a shallow multiplayer FPS game remains to be one of the world’s most bewildering unanswered questions.
Throwing away a carefully constructed cyberpunk dystopian world prime for a customisable player experience and emergent storytelling, and using the name value for an average-at-best Xbox 360 shooter crushed the hopes of long-suffering Shadowrun fans.
If you’re going to try to throw your hat into the ring of a genre that is heating up, against massive games like Call of Duty, you have to be confident in your product and Shadowrun couldn’t compete.
To make matters worse, the 2007 title had its planned campaign mode axed during development. It shipped as a full-price multiplayer experience only, adding to the general bad vibes of the entire release.
The saving grace is that hitting rock bottom allowed the IP to eventually revive as an RPG again in 2013 with a title designed to reassure fans: “Shadowrun Returns”. All’s well that ends well.