Every Shadowrun game, ranked
All 2 Shadowrun games we hold, spanning 2014 to 2015: 2 ranked by the GamingPickz Score and plotted below, the rest listed in release order so nothing in the series is missing. Together they carry 11,409 Steam reviews.
Where to start
- For the best-reviewed: Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut (GamingPickz Score 7.7), the highest-rated entry we can score.
The Shadowrun games on the grid
Compare the whole catalogueThe same 2 games, plotted rather than listed. The two axes below are the ones the ranking is built from, so a game sitting high and right is a game the formula placed near the top. Change either axis to see the field a different way. Where we hold a publisher wordmark, the game is drawn as its mark rather than a dot.
2 games have both
Axes are fitted to these 2 games rather than the full 0 to 100 scale, because a filtered list shares a narrow band and would otherwise sit in one corner. End values are marked. A point on the left edge is the lowest of thesegames, not a low score.
Players. The share of Steam reviews marked positive, pulled toward the catalogue average in proportion to how few reviews stand behind it. A game with 200 reviews moves a long way toward the average; one with 200,000 barely moves at all. Without this a title sitting at 100 percent on nine reviews outranks Half-Life 2 at 98 percent on 278,000.
Popularity. A blend of two things that are not the same. Audience is how many people wrote a Steam review, which is a floor on how many played it. Reach is how many language editions of Wikipedia document the game, which is cultural footprint rather than sales. A game can score high on one and low on the other: a huge free-to-play title has audience without reach, and a landmark console exclusive has reach without a Steam audience at all. Where both exist they are averaged; where only one does, that one carries it.
- PC
Every point links to that game's entry. The value map and the reception map are fixed views of the same data.
How positions are decided
No paid placement, no favouritism, live third-party data
- Placed by the published method, not by us. Every coordinate is computed from the axis definitions and weights printed on this site. Nobody moves a point. See the axes.
- Nothing here is paid for. No sponsored placements, no promoted slots, no arrangement of any kind affects a position. If that ever changes it will be labelled and sit outside the ranking.
- No favouritism, including our own. The 16 games we have written full reviews of are scored by exactly the same formula as the other 1,510, from the same third-party inputs, and they land where it puts them. Our own opinion of a game does not enter its coordinates.
- A position is not an endorsement. It says how a game was received and what it costs, not that we recommend it. Where we do recommend something, it carries a written review with a name on it.
- Fetched from live third-party data. Player sentiment from Steam, critic aggregates as published on store pages, prices checked hourly, attention from Wikipedia. Each figure carries its source and the date it was read, and we do not adjust any of them.
2 best Shadowrun games, ranked
Ordered by GamingPickz Score. Every figure links back to the source that produced it.
- 1
Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut
Best for: A consistently well-received pick in this category
7.7GamingPickz Scoremedium confidenceShadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut at a glance Released 2014 Studio Harebrained Schemes Player sentiment 89% positive of 6,570 Critics 87/100 Price $14.99 Steam Deck unsupported Install size 2 GB Accessibility 0 declared features Raw 89% shrinks to 88.7 on 6,570 reviews, then blends with the 87 critic aggregate, giving 7.7.
What the data supports- Small install at 2 GB.
Worth checking first- Flagged for mature content on its store page.
- Valve rates it Unsupported on the Steam Deck.
- 2
Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition
Best for: A consistently well-received pick in this category
7.4GamingPickz Scoremedium confidenceShadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition at a glance Released 2015 Studio Harebrained Schemes Player sentiment 87% positive of 4,839 Critics 81/100 Price $19.99 Steam Deck playable Install size 10 GB Accessibility 0 declared features Raw 87% shrinks to 86.8 on 4,839 reviews, then blends with the 81 critic aggregate, giving 7.4.
What the data supports- Small install at 10 GB.
Worth checking first- Flagged for mature content on its store page.
Best and worst entry
The best-received Shadowrun game we can score is Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut at 7.7. The lowest is Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition at 7.4, a 0.3-point spread across the series. The GamingPickz Score is a composite of player sentiment, critics and popularity, computed the same way for every game.
Cheapest way in, and best value
- Cheapest right now: Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut at $14.99. Prices are read live from Steam and move.
- Best value: Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut, the most GamingPickz Score per dollar in the series at its current price.
On a Steam Deck
Valve's own Deck compatibility rating for the Shadowrun entries on Steam:
- Playable: Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition
- Unsupported: Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut
Platforms across the series
Where the 2 Shadowrun games have landed, counting every entry we hold:
| Platform family | Entries |
|---|---|
| PC | 2 of 2 |
The Shadowrun series, game by game
Every Shadowrun game we hold, in release order. Each description is the game's own, from Steam where it has a listing and Wikipedia for the older entries, never ours.
- 2014
Harebrained Schemes' biggest Shadowrun game to date, and the definitive Shadowrun RPG experience available on PC. Now a standalone title with tons of new content & improvements! (Steam)
Plot
Set in 2054, players assume the role of a shadowrunner, a stealthy mercenary, who has recently arrived in the anarchic free state of Berlin to join a team headed by a colleague, Monika Schäfer. Other members of the team include Dietrich, a former punk rocker turned shaman; Glory, a heavily augmented cyborg; and Eiger, a troll weapons expert and former commando. Their first mission after the player joins them goes seriously wrong. (Wikipedia)
Reception
Reception Dragonfall received generally favorable reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic . Destructoid wrote that the game did not have any mechanical differences between it and Shadowrun Returns , with the exception of the new save system that they cited as a positive addition, concluding, "If you enjoyed your first taste of Shadowrun , then Dragonfall should be an immediate purchase. " Eurogamer thought that Dragonfall was a much better… (Wikipedia)
- 2015
Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition is the capstone title in Harebrained Schemes' Shadowrun series - and now includes the all-new, 6+ hr Shadows of Hong Kong Bonus Campaign. Experience the most impressive Shadowrun RPG yet, hailed as one of the best cRPG / strategy games of 2015! (Steam)
Shadowrun, head to head
Two entries side by side on score, price, specs and reception:
Shadowrun vs other series
How Shadowrun stacks up against other series in the same genre, as a whole:
Also: Shadowrun vs Darkest Dungeon, Shadowrun vs Divinity, Shadowrun vs Dungeons, Shadowrun vs Kingdom Rush, Shadowrun vs Might & Magic, Shadowrun vs Pathfinder, Shadowrun vs Soda Dungeon, Shadowrun vs Town of Salem, Shadowrun vs Wasteland, Shadowrun vs XCOM
Common questions
How many Shadowrun games are there?
We hold 2 Shadowrun games in the catalogue, released between 2014 and 2015. 2 of them carry enough Steam data to rank; the rest are listed in release order below, including console-only entries with no Steam listing.
Which Shadowrun game is best?
By the GamingPickz Score, Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut rates highest at 7.7. That is a composite of player sentiment, the critic aggregate and popularity, computed the same way for every game, not our opinion. The full ranking is above.
What order should I play the Shadowrun games in?
Release order is listed below, from 2014 to 2015. For most series that is also story order, but we list dates rather than telling you a canon; the timeline is read from Wikidata.
More franchises
Browse every game franchise ranked the same way, or head to the full grid.