BattleTech and Shadowrun studio Harebrained Schemes’ first post-Paradox game is sci-fi horror RPG Graft

Image credit: Harebrained Schemes

Battletech, Shadowrun, and The Lamplighters League developer Harebrained Schemes has announced its first project since parting ways with Paradox Interactive last year. It’s a “post-cyberpunk survival horror RPG” called Graft and it’s heading to PC.

Graft’s story unfolds in the depths of a decaying continent-sized space station known as the Arc, home to forgotten technologies and unsettling wonders. Players must brave its horrors as they traverse “massive chasms, labyrinthine techno-catacombs, and self-replicating corridors”, facing enemies in combat – including “ancient experiments, monstrous abominations, and relentless agents of a mad AI” – and Grafting as they go.

This is pretty much exactly what it sounds like, requiring players to scavenge body parts from fallen opponents and graft them onto themselves in order to alter their physical form, gaining new abilities and powers as they do. But Grafting a part also infuses players with its previous owner’s memories, creating what Harebrained calls a “haunting interplay of survival, transformation, and self-discovery”.

GRAFT by Harebrained — Official Announcement Trailer

Graft announcement trailer.Watch on YouTube

“Form alliances, build trust, and face the reality that anyone still living could be both an ally and a threat,” teases the studio. “Your decisions will shape your journey and determine the fate of those you encounter… Will you escape the Arc with your humanity intact, or become something else entirely?”

There’s no hint of a release date for Graft, but Harebrained is currently aiming to launch it via the Epic Games Store and Steam. It’ll be the studio’s first release since last year’s flawed by entertaining turn-based strategy game The Lamplighter’s League, which publisher Paradox Interactive later declared a $22m flop.

That announcement was followed by the news Paradox was parting ways with Harebrained Schemes – which it had acquired back in 2018 following the release of BattleTech – with the publisher retaining the rights to The Lamplighters League, BattleTech, Necropolis, and the Shadowrun Trilogy.