Play Shadowrun Online

Shadowrun on the Sega Genesis, released in 1994 by Beam Software, was a strange and ambitious game for its time. It didn't look or play like much else on the console, diving headfirst into a gritty cyberpunk world that felt more complex than the typical platformers and action games of the era. You weren't saving a princess; you were just trying to survive in a city that wanted you dead.

You control a mercenary investigating your brother's murder, navigating the rain-slicked streets of a futuristic Seattle from a top-down perspective. The core loop involves talking to contacts in bars to get information, hiring other shadowrunners for their unique skills, and venturing into dangerous corporate zones for combat and data retrieval. Two of its most defining mechanics are decking, where you jack into the cyberspace Matrix to hack systems in a separate, wireframe view, and its real-time combat that blends gunplay with magic. The pacing is deliberate, even slow, as you carefully manage your limited funds and resources between runs. It feels like piecing together a dangerous puzzle where every wrong move can get you killed.