Which order to play?

[Skull]

Hi, what is the order of playing?

Shadowrun returns, Shadow run directors cut, Shadowrun hong kong, shadowrun dragonfall.

I have no idea on which order should I play these games

[Dohi64]

returns, dragonfall, hong kong. they're separate stories, but you'll appreciate the small changes to mechanics more this way, and returns is a good introduction to the universe.

[Skull]

How about the directors cut? Where does it fit in the series?

[Dohi64]

there are only 3 games in the series. dragonfall was originally dlc for returns, then got released separately and got a director's cut version.

[lPaladinl]

As Dohi64 already said, the release order was: Returns, Dragonfall, Hong Kong.

Dragonfall Director's Cut is just an alternate version of the original. Dragonfall was originally DLC for Returns, then they decided to make it stand-alone with some feature tweaks to the game engine. If you own both or plan to get one or the other, I think it's pretty much unanimous that Dragonfall Director's Cut is the better version to grab.

[red255]

yeah they are stand alone not really tied to each other.

the first one is in the united states, I think seatle? the second one is in germany, and Hong Kong is... somewhere in asia.

totally different Crew. not releated or interacting with each other.

[Raoul Duke]

Just finished returns and am about to wrap up dragonfall director's cut and agree with Dohi64. Returns is a good intro to the interface, system, mechanics, etc and Harebrained iterated on that original design in each subsequent release.

[MorningLightMountain]

Chronologically they do take place in the order of Returns, Dragonfall & Hong Kong. There are references to events from the other campaigns.

[v0]

any order works story wise but game mechanics're more restricted in earlier versions so i'd do dms->dfall->hk.

[Retrorage]

From the standpoint of playing HK -> returns -> dfall, I will definitely say go from returns -> dfall -> Hk

Going from HK -> returns was a little lackluster. returns -> dfall is a good change of pace.
I enjoyed HK the most then Dfall then Returns. So if you start with returns, you'll feel like every game you play is an improvement. I was a little let down when I went from HK to Returns, not to say Returns is bad, but rather its less good compared to HK. Also you will find some call backs since you are also playing them in the order they were made!