In June 2024 we presented two offers – one revived, one new – featuring the 2013 Fifth Edition of Shadowrun from Catalyst Game Labs. The revived February 2019 Shadowrun 5E Essentials Bundle, with the rulebook and core supplements, provided an ideal login to the Sixth World of 2081. And its new companion, the SR5 Missions Megabundle, added the Seattle Sprawl location guide and 15 scenario collections.
Shadowrun, Fifth Edition is the 2013 version of one of the most popular and successful roleplaying worlds ever – a fusion of man, magic, and machine in a dystopian high-tech, high-magic future. You are a shadowrunner, thriving in the margins, doing the jobs no one else can. You can survive, even flourish, as long as you do what it takes. Sacrifice part of your soul for bleeding-edge gear. Push the limits of your will with new and dangerous magic. Wire yourself into the Matrix, making your mind one with streams of data. It’ll cost you something – everything does – but you can make it worth the price. You are whatever you make yourself. Will you seek justice, sow seeds of chaos, or sell out to the highest bidder? It’s up to you. This much is certain: If you do nothing, the streets eat you alive.
With all the rulebooks and key supplements for character creation, magic, combat, Matrix hacking, and rigging, and more than a dozen full-length missions that range throughout the nightmare datascape of 2081, these two offers had everything you need to face the challenges of the Sixth World.
SHADOWRUN 5E ESSENTIALS [from Feb 2019]
Revived (for a second time) from February 2019, Shadowrun 5E Essentials once again gathered the complete rulebook and its core supplements. If you’re new to the game, start with these books.
There were three titles in this revived offer’s Core Collection (retail value $70), including the complete Shadowrun, Fifth Edition rulebook (Master Index Edition), plus the free 5E Quick-Start Rules and Character Conversion Guide; the player’s book, Run Faster; and the augmentation catalog Chrome Flesh.
Those who paid more than this revived offer’s threshold (average) price also got this revival’s entire Bonus Collection with four more titles worth an additional $100 – the advanced combat supplement Run & Gun and the rules expansions for magic (Street Grimoire), the Matrix (Data Trails), and riggers (Rigger 5.0).
SR5 MISSIONS MEGA [new]
This new companion SR5 Missions Megabundle added many SR5 scenarios and campaign sourcebooks. All these titles require the rulebook and core supplements.
There were eight titles in this offer’s Starter Collection (retail value $102) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete Seattle Sprawl Digital Box location guide; three standalone scenarios that explore the Sixth World – the introductory adventure Splintered State, Lethal Forces, and Toxic Alleys; and four anthologies of adventures originally designed to be run at conventions: Boundless Mercy, Firing Line, London Falling, and Sprawl Wilds.
This offer’s Bonus Collection added eight more sourcebooks and scenarios worth an additional $159, including all five campaign books that chronicle the CFD (Cognitive Fragmentation Disorder) metaplot – Stolen Souls, Lockdown, Dark Terrors [previously in our February 2019 SR5 Runs and Guns offer], Bloody Business, and Market Panic; and all three adventures in the Denver Trilogy: Serrated Edge, False Flag, and Ripping Reality.
Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) went to these two Shadowrun, Fifth Edition offers’ designated charity, the Diana Jones Award Emerging Designer Program. Each year, the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, amplifies the voices of up-and-coming game designers by featuring them during an expenses-paid visit to Gen Con. The global Emerging Designer Program focuses on creators from marginalized communities.
