Shadowrun Anarchy 2.0 Offers A Leaner, Meaner Classic Cyberpunk RPG
Shadowrun is an alternate history cyberpunk fantasy where players do the dirty work of corporations in order to survive.
Black Book Editions
There’s always something going in the fast paced streets of the cyberpunk fantasy world called Shadowrun. Runners bleed and die anonymous deaths for the hottest technology. Magic users battle ancient threats and new changes to the fabric of reality.
A new set of rules focused on fast play and narrative control are currently on Kickstarter. Shadowrun Anarchy 2.0 evolves the rules light version of Shadowrun that first appeared in 2016 to offer more Shadowrun while not getting bogged down in the details. I spoke with members of the design team in advance of the crowdfunding launch, which achieved its goal in nine minutes
“Shadowrun’s “Sixth World” is extremely exciting,” said Shadowrun Anarchy 2.0 lead designer Mathieu “Carmody” Thivin. “Take our own reality, fast forward 60 years into the future after a slew of catastrophes, high-tech developments and the return of magic and fantasy elements, shake all of that and serve it into a cyberpunk setting. You’ve got dwarf deckers hacking highly secure online databases. Troll mercenaries causing mayhem with heavy weapons. Magicians using their spells to infiltrate secret high-tech facilities run by ruthless megacorps… Anarchy 2.0 provides a different, more accessible, entry point into this world, especially for newcomers who are not yet familiar with the game and its setting.”
“Our team has been in charge of localizing Shadowrun in French for around 20 years now,” said Tony Bruno, Black Book Editions Marketing Director, “working together with Catalyst Game Labs, probably the longest running partnership in our industry. Our team is made up of rabid Shadowrun fans, and the French versions of Shadowrun books come with extra content like bonus chapters, adventures and errata. Shadowrun: Anarchy 1.0 was released 6 or 7 years ago in France and on French-speaking markets where it was massively successful -a testament to the need for a lighter Shadowrun ruleset next to the classic line. People loved the Anarchy core book to the point that its sales today are nearly on par with Sixth Edition, itself the most successful iteration of Shadowrun to date here. So the project emerged from a very practical question we had at BBE: should we reprint the existing Shadowrun Anarchy book once more, or was CGL planning a new edition that we should anticipate? After all, it had been nearly 10 years since Anarchy was initially released in English.”
Carmody and Bruno have both spent time as line developers for Shadowrun in their time at Black Book Editions. They saw an opportunity to expand Shadowrun to an audience that loved the setting and the concepts but were a little gun shy about the game’s detailed rules.
“Many players had been requesting simpler rules for Shadowrun,” said Carmody, “Anarchy was the ideal answer. Roughly 2 years ago, Tony asked me if CGL was working on a new edition for Anarchy. I wasn’t aware of anything, but certainly had ideas of my own for it. One thing led to another and a few weeks later the project was properly pitched to BBE, then to CGL. I got the green light to lead and design this new edition. Rather than just translating and slightly tweaking the original Anarchy like I did with v1, I had the opportunity to design the entire game from the ground up, using Anarchy’s best features, introducing a couple of very simple new mechanics and most importantly taking into account years of community feedback on how to keep Shadowrun’s richness while offering a simplified ruleset. Two years later, it turns out that 25+ creative people have been involved in the project, writing, proofreading, translating, creating artwork and designing the new layout. The great thing about it is we got to create the project in French and English simultaneously to allow for a dual launch in both languages. I’m very grateful to both Catalyst and Black Book for this opportunity, and proud of the work we did. I hope, and believe that people will be just as enthusiastic when they receive their copy of the book!”
The core mechanic stays the same. Players collect handfuls of six sided dice based on their skills and attributes looking for fives and sixes to represent successes. The more success rolled, the more damage done, the more skillful the hack and so on.
“I love the risk management rule we introduced into the basic rules,” said Carmody.” It is central to this edition’s identity, and can be summed up with a slogan: Successful runners are those willing to take risks to get things done, and take responsibility for their consequences. The rule encourages the players to describe their character’s actions and creates twists and new developments as glitches inevitably occur – but without derailing the story.”
Players can opt to change their regular dice into risk dice, which offer two successes on a roll of five or six, but complications called glitches when they come up as one. The more ones on a roll, the bigger the glitch. A minor glitch might be something like a gun runs out of ammo while three or more could be something catastrophic such as a hacker being attacked by a lethal computer virus.
Glitches can be reduced by Shadow Amps, which reflect advantages, skills, gear and training a runner might have that apply in certain situations. Having a cyberarm might offset glitches in brawling attacks to encourage players to take more risk dice during a first fight. The designers included rules for players to make their own, either as hot new technology or to help adapt beloved characters to this version of the game.
“Many aspects of classic Shadowrun rules are handled by what we call Shadow Amps,” said Carmody. “ i.e. anything that grants a character powers, special effects or a significant bonus (cybernetics, adept powers, cyberdecks, drones, even contacts). They come with dedicated rules to create your own Amps (on top of a comprehensive list to choose from), which will make it very easy to create the amps that you may feel are missing from the book and required for your game.”
Shadow Amps can also help players resist spellcasting drain, a feature from the original game making a return in Anarchy 2.0. One of the design goals was to make character types feel as unique as they do in Sixth Edition. Rules light design can often erase that niche protection byt the team didn’t want that for this game.
“ I wanted the main roles to be fully covered while making sure playing one feels different than the other,” said Carmody. “ So whether you choose to play a street samurai, a decker, a mage, a rigger, or whatever else, the core book will contain what you need to make your character truly unique. It was also important for me to make sure magical Drain was covered. Since the very first edition of Shadowrun, using magic causes fatigue to a mage, called Drain, an important part of balancing magic in my mind. That aspect was missing in the Anarchy 1.0 and I really wanted to reintroduce it here, along with the ability of mages to know many spells.”
Shadowrun Anarchy 2.0 also takes some inspiration from modern games like Blades In The Dark. Rather than spending vital game time planning their next heist, each player makes a legwork roll to add Edge dice to a communal pool. When the time comes during the job, players flashback to the legwork, reveal how the obstacle was already scouted and add some of those dice to their roll to get past it in the moment.
“In terms of gameplay,” said Carmody, “whereas classic Sixth Edition Shadowrun provides detailed rules for each and every situation, Anarchy 2.0 streamlines them into a single type of roll covering every possible situation. I believe new players will enjoy the legwork and plan making rules, which let you semi-abstractly prepare for elaborate heists and slick operations without spending hours crafting plans (which more often than not go down in flames as soon as the action starts).”
Shadowrun Anarchy 2.0 crowdfunds now through September 25th 2025. Digital copies are expected to be in backer hands in Q1 of 2026 with physical copies due in Q2/Q3.