Cyberpunk Maker Announces New Game

The publisher behind Cyberpunk Red and The Witcher RPG has announced a new original game set to hit shelves next year. This week, R Talsorian Games announced Shadow Scar, a brand new tabletop RPG set in a new world inspired by Japanese folklore, anime, and sci-fi series such as Stargate. The new RPG will be built around a new game system (differentiating it from both Cyberpunk Red and The Witcher RPG, which use the Interlock game system) and is set in a universe where monsters inspired by Japanese mythology and folklore are invading various worlds and timelines. Shadow Scar will use a new Mosaic game engine, in which players use a pool of six-sided dice based on their skills, with each 3 or higher counting as a success towards the total number of successes needed in a check. The game was previously teased earlier this year as Project: Blue Moon.

In a feature with Dicebreaker, which revealed the first details about the new setting, Shadow Scar creator Cody Pondsmith explained that the game draws heavily from his love of anime. “This is a passion project of mine that I’ve been working on for the majority of my life,” Pondsmith told Dicebreaker. “I have pulled from a lot of anime that I’ve watched over the years, just as this world has evolved and shifted as I have been working on it.” In fact, the six core classes of Shadow Scar are all trained in different schools of ninjitsu, similar to Naruto’s shinobi clans. 

The setting of the game features a world in which monsters (inspired by yokai and other creatures from Japanese folklore) have traveled from Nakatsukuni, a high fantasy world rooted inspired 17th century Japanese culture, into other worlds through the titular Shadow Scar. Other worlds that appear in Shadow Scar include Fifth Street, a “pulp noir” take on pre-Great Depression America, the steampunk setting Steel Court that’s based on an alternate history version of England, and Refuge, a futuristic setting in which inhabitants on the moon are the last remnant of humanity. Each world has been invaded by creatures from Nakatsukuni who are under the control of an evil deity, forcing the intervention of the Shadow Scar Society (which conveniently is made up of player characters.) 

According to Dicebreaker, R Talsorian Games plans to release Shadow Scar in 2024, with a core rulebook and a quickstart guide initially planned for release.