@Flinch: Wow, thank you so much for the detailed writeup! I did enjoy experimenting with adding some new mechanics in this campaign, I'm glad that you liked them. Big thanks to all the early players who provided feedback, that helped a ton with the polish!

@Daisuke: Welcome back! Thanks for checking in - I'm doing well, I haven't been working on games lately but I'm sure I'll get that itch again someday. I'm glad to hear that you were so moved by the game and thought it was fun!

@DerVammt: Heh, that's a pretty neat exploit! As long as it doesn't break anything I'll probably leave it in the campaign.

@MrGoldbee: Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

@El Pollo Loco: Wow! I love the vanilla HBS campaigns, I feel honored that this compared well for you.

@DaveOfDeath: Thanks! I think you're right, there is a little more discussion of the band in the developer commentary.

@The Wokester: Haha, it is pretty wild when megacorps and evil magic rituals combine!

@Psych Student: Oh, thanks for sharing your experience! I felt very connected to the characters while writing them, I'm glad they felt human to you. Seeing that character in the end is actually a pretty rare occurrence, glad you got to see it!

@mtdupler, @bshaneg37: Based on other comments, you can try disabling and re-enabling Steam Cloud, verifying the integrity of game files, and letting the game wait for a while on the title screen - especially if you've subscribed to multiple mods, it can take a while for everything to download, and no progress is shown. Also double-check you're using the right game client (e.g., Dragonfall Director's Cut for Antumbra Saga, Shadowrun Hong Kong for CalFree in Chains).

Hello, hello! I noticed that this campaign has passed 20,000 subscribers - amazing! A heartfelt "thank you" to all the runners, old and new, who have played this mod and helped keep the flame alive.

@Miniman: Congrats! I always thought that Dorbi was a super-villain in training , I was a little surprised by some of the twists and turns in her arc. Glad you enjoyed your time with her!

@madkhan13: Aw, I'm so pleased that you enjoyed the campaign, thanks for writing!

@Janos Biro: Wow, I'm glad you liked the story so much, cheers!

@hi3r0ph4nt: Thanks! It's been a trip to help expand this universe.

@Librodeus: Welcome back, good to see you again! I'm glad that the story left an impression on you.

@Kalter Stahl: I appreciate your kind words. And thanks for spreading the news about Invocation Array! You can also find their music streaming on Spotify or for purchase on Bandcamp.

Such an incredible finale for the trilogy. So many touching, rewarding moments. You'd be lucky to get this level of character and story writing in any triple A game.
I could go on and on with flowery words, but for anyone thinking about playing this : Do it. If you liked the vanilla Shadowrun campaigns, play this trilogy, because it is better. As much as Harebrained schemes made awesome stories, this is even better.

A great game that stands the test of time.

For anyone still here I wanted to share a "trick" that you can do to have -1 essence (only possible thanks to your gills)

1) Cyber up (down to 1 Essence)
2) Change gills to inteligence boost (costs 2 more Essence but still possible) -> have -1 Essence

Now the interesting part is that the game starts to treat you differently. I guess some spells only work on things with at least 1 essence.

In short some spells don't work on you anymore like "Manaball"

On the down side you are also immune to most buffs, like aim or the active effects of at least some adept powers

But don't worry, "heal wound" still works

And most importantly you can finally play as a cyberzombie!

I just wanted to comment that I played this during the pandemic and still think about this often. The depth of the characters and writing were unmatched. I hope you're doing well and still working on games, Cirion. This campaign really touched my heart and torn it to pieces while also being incredibly fun to play.

Astonishing good, longer and higher quality than at least 2 of the official campaigns. The mod description really doesn't do it justice, sounding like a short lame "power of friendship" cliche campaign with army-tier enemy waves, but it isn't like that at all. Hits every mechanic (including adding a few new ones), has a variety of mission types (ie. combat only, full stealth possible etc. etc.), dumps an enormous amount of lore, has interesting characters (mechanically, personality and interaction options), choices made in dialogue have SERIOUS consequences, level design is varied and delightful and overall there is just a huge amount of polish. Ho boy I loved my time playing this.

Screw this. Sounds like it would have been fun to play but the fact that I can't easily download and install it means it was designed wrong.

Not working!

Subscribe to it... And then open hong Kong? The "updating UGC" flashing at the bottom of the main menu.

Seriously how the hell do I install this thing!

Really fed up with having to jump through hoops to try and make a Mod work.

anyone know why this and the other workshop mods won't download for me from steam? thanks

I just finished going through the mod, Its just peak fiction. The characters felt human with depth, I still couldn't get over the twist mid game. The ending was just perfect seeing that character again in the end coupled with the music was indescribably good. I wish I could wipe my brain and play it all again 10/10.

Shadowrun is the only setting where you can use the phrase "blood magic of the type that took down Dunkin Doughnuts" unironically.

Turn on the dev comments... Cirion talks quite a bit about the band if I recall correctly. Insightful if you're ever considering building a UGC yourself as well.

Amazing campaign! Prolly the best user made campaign ive played in anything. If anyone is curious the ending credit song Catalyst by Invocation Array is on youtube

I last played this in 2018 and I still think about it often. What a fantastic campaign!

Thank you for a beautiful expansion.

The best Shadowrun story I've played so far.

I still tell people this is one of the best campaigns ever!

Just finished CalFree, thereby completing the Dorbi trilogy (I'm glad my favourite party member from Antumbra was the character who played a role in every game). This was fantastic, each module was great in itself and the continuity and character development across all three was amazing.

@mirrormystic: Welcome back, and I'm glad you enjoyed your latest run despite knowing what was in store!

@Diamond Encrusted Toaster: Thanks for playing through my stories! This is a really fun setting to DM for.

@Chad Castle: Cheers!

@Librodeus: Heh, I didn't know people could subscribe to these threads! I appreciate your ongoing interest, hope you have a good day!

Happy 2023, everyone! This little campaign is now five years old. I've enjoyed seeing old runners returning to it and new runners finding it for the first time. Thanks to everyone for spreading the word and showing your support!

@beccthewreck: Aw, thank you so much for writing! Arelia's plot was moving for me, I'm glad it affected you too. "Bound" is great, and I get even more out of it now than when I first saw it.

@bobjones: I'm glad you enjoyed the campaign! I think my vision of Shadowrun has more "rays of hope" than most GMs, so it's good to hear you liked that aspect. I'm drawn to stories where people pursue their own agendas for reasons that make sense to them, even if they cause conflict with people who have different goals.

@DaveOfDeath and @count_zerp: Thanks for the support!

I've been subscribed to this thread for years in case there's any new Cirion content announced, but it's nice to see new people still coming by and playing and enjoying the mod. It made a big impact to a lot of people, and continues to do so!

Awesome, I hope to see more someday.

Just beat this. Beautiful, I appreciate everything you created. I am astonished and I hope that you someday make more stories. You'd make a KILLER DM.

It's been years, but this campaign is a gift that keeps on gifting. I actually decided on a whim to start a fresh playthrough of Hong Kong, but then I saw this in my content list and ended up getting thoroughly derailed. This campaign is just *so* evocative, so gripping, that even years later it still gets me right in the heart. Even with some half-remembered foreknowledge of the twists, and remembering to be prepared for heavy combat (this playthrough I remembered you can loan spells to your team, and Strip Armor is a godsend), this campaign is just magnificent. A true, true masterpiece. Thank you for the work you've put into making this, and thank you for the joy of experiencing it, time and time again!

update: I watched bound. it's my favorite movie now. rad.

@derkylos and everyone else, think a bit. The troll isn't hard at all and I've never touched a crystal (didn't even know about them). Have your party stand on the dragon lines so he can't. Strip Armor is a spell that can be purchased for your NPC party members. The Sandblaster Shotgun is available by then.

Came here because of the exact same problem, even tho I took that mission last. All I found were spoilers about dying. My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined.

I hate fights where you can only finish them if you do it the "right" way...I mean, the whole point of games like this is to provide options.

There's a trick to it... I think your crew drops the chat bubble hints about it if they're alive long enough like they did during the wander around phase before that.

There are orbs in hidden side chambers you need to smash to remove his regenerating armor and the fight is very different. Found it on accident when the troll ran into one of the small rooms.

Disappointed. The troll with 100 health, 10 armor, standing on a heavy dragon line chucking flame spells is unbeatable on normal difficulty with starting characters and their lack of healing kits. Especially when saddled with a party member who's one trick, stun locking enemies, is totally ineffective against this enemy. I guess the answer is to not try and get the fake IDs first, even though that seems the logical order for me.

This was awesome! I enjoyed playing through the Caldecott Caper, but this touched me on a whole other level. Dark and dystopian, but with rays of hope just possible - very Shadowrun, IMHO. Some characters with super-inflated egos or ideas of shaping the world their way, for good or ill or profit, and many people trying to make their way in that world, often going with the flow, but sometimes fighting it and trying to change it.

I got stuck pretty early on. You get $0,and if you don't have the right skill set you have to assault a base with 30+ enemies attacking you all at once. Due to not having any money, you have just the med kits you can pick up. To make matters worse, you're stuck with a useless companion. I get it, he can punch people and sap AP. He's still useless. What use is stun locking one enemy when you're assaulted by waves of a dozen? A pacifist team mate in a game about gunning down people is just bad. Like, really bad.

The first two entries to the story were good. But without the ability of importing characters or more karma to put into skills, it forces you to fight unwinnable battles if you made your character 'wrong'. This makes it especially frustrating because I beat the first two chapters, I want to finish the Saito story goes.

Looks like you need put all your points into drones (drones 5 required on first mission ) if you're reading this and want to avoid the problem I ran into.

I also apparently really enjoyed Arelia's romance subplot, since I'm still thinking about it over 2 days later. Huh.

Now I really wanna watch Bound.

Thanks again. Can't wait to do a replay.

This campaign was absolutely fantastic. The whole trilogy was incredible. I'll probably be replaying these games for a while to come, along with the official Returns trilogy.

Thanks for the good times! I had a blast.

Absolute tripe. No hook, no shadowrunning, no logic, rarely the natural dialogue option I want... Instead, an incessant series of repetitive, ill-constructed fights, between some show offs from idiotic NPCs. A severe downgrade from the Caldecott Caper. (Looks like I'm the only one with a negative comment, and it's quite surprising to me.)

@< blank >: You are correct, that is the closest you can get to making Gavan take that action.

@Joekirk: Heh, I ended up rewriting almost all of Isao's dialogue shortly before launch. It was initially almost incomprehensible, which wasn't my intention, he's just supposed to sound different. And thanks for sharing your reaction to that scene! That's a pretty rare route for people to take and I wasn't sure if it was worth the effort to add, so reading reactions like that is very encouraging. Cheers!

@DarkSpiral: Wow, you've been on quite a series of runs! Thanks for the feedback, I definitely learned a lot while making these campaigns. I'm glad that this ending felt appropriate to you; I don't think that there's just one flavor of Shadowrun, and each GM will run their own table a different way, but it's good to know we fit into the universe. I don't have any other projects out yet, but when I do I'll be sure to let folks know here!

Hi, everybody! I hope you all are having a good 2022. A big "thank you" to everyone who has subscribed to this mod, told other folks about it, or helped out other runners along the way!

@mikusama: You'll want to select SRHK.exe on Windows or SRHK.app on Mac. Then click the button that says "Replace" and the program will update all the music.

@Caravaral: I'm glad that you had fun with this campaign, thanks for writing!

@Sagil: I'm glad that you enjoyed the story, cheers!

@Brother Felix: Thanks!

@Daisuke: I appreciate you sharing your thoughts! I felt sad while writing the third campaign, which definitely affected the story. Adding new mechanics and designing unique encounters was a lot of fun. Glad you enjoyed it!

@AlexZ, @Smoke Fumus: Thanks for sharing your feedback on combat. It always feels toughest to balance these games at low-karma levels since there isn't much slack for low rolls.

And here we are. At the end.

Cirion, it was a pleasure to watch your storytelling and scene-building skills develop over the course of playing your excellent series.

You nailed the dystopian vibe on this one. When my Hero of Halferville literally rode off into the sunset with Persi, it was satisfying, but this ending felt truly appropriate to Shadowrun. Thank you for sharing this story with us.

Do you have any other projects floating around the Net, or was SR: HK modding the most recent of them?

I'm late to the party, but you guys killed it with this one. Fantastic capstone to the trilogy. I think the handling of Isao was well done. The language barrier wasn't grating, which must have taken considerable effort.

I also enjoyed the romance route for Valiri, in particular the date with her, great scene all around and even the very last scene with her if you stay aboard the station - even if it is just a 'hallucination' . I also appreciated the handling of the death, and the fallout after. Kora's treatment of the situation was very organic. That even just before the last mission you can still talk about it was nice, it kept that weight heavy. I wasn't ready to see Valiri again at the end having gone the entire time showing the Runner being very affected by her death. But it made that scene all the sweeter for it, and I thank you for almost making me cry. You awful, wonderful people.

@Smoke Fumus 11 Jan @ 9:37am
I disagree: I found the difficulty fine (playing on normal as jack-of-all-trades deckers/rifle with lots of charisma and some points all over) except for the mage in one of the early 3 missions that kept killing me in 1 hit. But I managed that eventually and didn't have other problems.
Arelia wasn't my fave either, but I found Saito and Hans to be properly characterized and well written.

Eeeeeh. Difficulty pacing on this one is worse than The Caldecott Caper. Until you get 3 ap switch enabled, then it becomes manageable. Enemies swarm you left and right, so, just like in Dead Man's switch only reasonable choice is go full shotgun commando with mag arm.

Writing is worse too.
Saito's actions look like absolute saturday morning cartoon villain fodder. Hans Brackhaus portrayed as a blabbering idiot, which is absolutely not who he suppose to be in lore. The bait and switch with romance only to get interests nuked was kinda funny. What's not fun is Arelia's writing. I do understand the intent that she suppose to be a very melancholic and tormented trog, but why is she written **so** stereotypically? Like it's just a train of sad sap. Where's nuance? And it's extra bizzare considering that Masato is written better in nuance.

I don't think it's possible to get Gavan to blow up the station himself. The closest you can get is make him seriously consider it, at which point another guy shoots him because he wavers. Then the last fight starts, but there's one guy less. To do this, you gotta find out about his wife and kid. I don't know if you need to hold on to it till the last moment, I only dobbed him in when I was at Camelot, then told Gavan about it. I also confronted him about his wife and kid, which was when he started to waver and got geeked by his minion.

Supposedly, there is an ending where Gavin blows up the space station himself, but I haven't been able to get this ending yet. I am determined to get it eventually though, I just have to figure out what dialogue and action choices trigger it.



Daisuke Nov 12 @ 10:46pm
I am speechless and heartbroken after playing this whole trilogy. The third game was by far the deepest and saddest, but the first two were also amazing. This totally deserved to be a separate game in the store and I really hope you are a successful game developer working at a major company, Cirion. You are incredibly talented. The writing, the design of the encounters, the mechanics you added to the game, and the jaw-dropping (and tear-jerking) plot twists definitely made your module add a lot more shine to the Shadowrun series. I just wish there were an alternative ending where you . Thank you for such an incredible adventure!

I am speechless and heartbroken after playing this whole trilogy. The third game was by far the deepest and saddest, but the first two were also amazing. This totally deserved to be a separate game in the store and I really hope you are a successful game developer working at a major company, Cirion. You are incredibly talented. The writing, the design of the encounters, the mechanics you added to the game, and the jaw-dropping (and tear-jerking) plot twists definitely made your module add a lot more shine to the Shadowrun series. I just wish there were an alternative ending where you could convince Gavan to join you in the last fight and stay by the machine and redirect the attack. Maybe something that required you to gather more data during the story and find out more about his wife and child. But I understand that sacrifices and coming to terms with the loss of your loved ones are central themes in the story . Thank you for such an incredible adventure!

Killer story.

Great story beautifully told, thanks for this.