Is Shadowrun Returns and Shadowrun: Dragonfall two different gaming experiences?

[Andy]

The question is in the title.

[Lord Of Dorkness]

Yup.

Returns -> Dragonfall -> Hong Kong.

At least try playing 'em in that order. Hare-Brained added some stuff & quality of life fixes that make it hard but not impossible to play the earlier games after you've gotten used to the later ones.

[Heau]

Define gaming experience?

It's the same ruleset. Same game mechanics. Completely different story but in an only slightly different setting (still the Shadowrun universe). There were continuous QoL/UI improvements over the 3 titles but markedly more from Returns to DF.

It's like would any dungeon and dragon ruleset based game in approximately the same game development era be "different gaming experiences". The answer is it depends what you consider to define your gaming experience.

If you play card games like Hearthstone or MTG, this would be more like a new set of cards than a wholly different card game.

If you play DnD and similar games, it's more like a jump in version or an expansion (e.g. DoS 1 vs DoS 2) or the same mechanics in a different setting like icewind dale vs baldur's gate vs neverwinter nights.