Shadowrun and Battletech creators unveil cyberpunk horror RPG set on a "dying space station" where upgrades change your personality
"You are the ship of Theseus" in Harebrained's new game Graft
When I catch word of a chocolate-and-peanut-butter blend of genres such as "cyberpunk survival horror RPG", my eyes light up. Literally, they light up like the pilot lights of flamethrowers, like glyphs on a cursed monolith that has been exposed to fresh blood after a billion years of dormancy. When I hear that the aforesaid RPG is set on a "dying space station", I begin to emit a monotonous reverberation, like the mysterious banging recently heard aboard the Boeing Starliner. And when I hear that it's being made by the people behind Shadowrun and Battletech, I extend dozens of independently cognitive motorised tentacles and begin writing a news article.
Revealed just today, Harebrained Schemes' Graft isn't just "cyberpunk", it's "post-cyberpunk". Strictly speaking, "post-cyberpunk" probably means the noughties, when the neon promise of cyborgs and endless digital networking finally gave way to the dour mundanity of everybody having a smartphone, a Facebook account and a case of low-key perma-anxiety, but I'll allow it, because I do love me a doomed space station. Here's the trailer.
Some blurb: "the Arc is dying. You must escape. Once, it hung in the sky like a jeweled moon - a continent-sized station filled with biomechanically enhanced citizens, all working toward some greater purpose lost to time. Bodies were replaceable, resurrection assumed.
"Now your city - one of the last - has fallen, swallowed by the encroaching darkness of the station's slow death," it continues. "Beyond its walls you find yourself in the Arc's decaying superstructure, where both power and light are precious resources. But the darkness isn't empty. It only feels that way at first."
I am enthused by this scene-setting, and by the promise of roaming "self-replicating labyrinths" and real-time shoot-outs with "feral abominations" and the "ruthless agents of a mad AI". But I'm more enthused about the game's progression or upgrades element, which has uncommon narrative gravitas. Your character can attach or, if you will, "graft" augmentations to their body, but each piece of technology you stitch to your nervous system brings with it the recollections of the previous owner.
"With each Graft, strange cravings and half-glimpsed memories flood your system," the Steam page explains. "Now you remember the hot breath of a lover you never touched. Now you find yourself suddenly obsessing over cruel and sadistic impulses. Now you remember the monotony of an endless solitary confinement. You must choose what each of these fragments means to you, and you must live with the consequences of each choice."
In summary, "you are the Ship of Theseus. Who, or what, will you be when you escape?" Choice of nanoware dictating whether you character ends the game a serial killer or a philanthropist? Yes, I can get on board with this.
Harebrained Schemes "parted ways" with former parent company Paradox Interactive last October, following lower-than-satisfactory sales of The Lamplighters League. Discussing the decision, Paradox chief operational officer Charlotta Nilsson declared that "a new project or sequel in the same genre was not in line with our portfolio plans". It's rumoured that Harebrained pitched a new Battletech game to Paradox before the split. I wouldn't be surprised if nascent ideas for Graft took shape while the studio were still part of the Crusader Kings publisher.