I just learned that Shadowrun, the cyberpunk cousin of Dungeons & Dragons, had a Counter-Strike-style FPS game. I also learned that it is still playable today thanks to some dedicated fans and an active Discord community.

A recent thread by ResetEra forum user wwm0nkey revealed that the game's matchmaking has been patched after a plea to Microsoft after a recent server update accidentally broke matchmaking. Shadowrun's multiplayer was thought to be dead in the ground for years after the dedicated servers went down, but was eventually discovered to still be functional via some peer-to-peer backend wizardry. This led to an explosion of activity within the Discord community of dedicated fans dubbed "This is Shadowrun."

This group of fans started and ran a small community, but things took a turn for the worse when a sudden update nearly brought it all crashing down. A few days ago, "Microsoft updated some matchmaking services and fixed the Call of Duty game on the platform.

"Some people (including myself) reached out and Microsoft actually ended up fixing it.

Now, it seems pretty painless to go back to Santos on the Xbox and fly around with a run-and-gun. Meanwhile, on the PC version, the same Discord server has launched an installation guide for the long-defunct game and is handing out keys saved from out of nowhere to keep Shadowrun's heart beating.

If you can't get a CD key from the community, there is another clever way to dodge the age-old Games for Windows Live key authentication: get one of the few GFWL keys still available on Steam and use it to activate Shadowrun Shadowrun with it. We have no idea how this works, but our own Morgan Park tried it with the 2008 release of FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage, and it worked without any problems. Oddly enough, these old keys can also be used to unlock similar games over and over.

This is especially important since this game is a shooter with no campaign.

From a distance, Shadowrun itself looks like a strange game with a cool idea. There are races such as dwarves, elves, humans, and trolls, each with their own unique characteristics. This is combined with a Counter-Strike-esque system that allows players to purchase technology and magic upgrades at the start of each round. The video makes it seem almost Valorant, with arcane spells that teleport through walls and revive allies. [The game has "Diabolos," "Diabolos," "Diabolos," "Diabolos," "Diabolos," "Diabolos," "Diabolos," "Diabolos," "Diabolos," Wwm0nkey says, "seems like an Xbox [backwards compatible] team People connected the dots and fixed things that didn't really need fixing and made it better than before," and praised them, but they were later able to confirm that they were back thanks to the "Xbox Mod Squad team."