Shadowrun Returns and BattleTech developer Harebrained Schemes has announced its latest project, a grim cyberpunk RPG by the name of Graft that's currently in development for PC.
Harebrained was purchased by its former parent company Paradox Interactive back in 2018, but following weak sales of the 2023 tactical RPG The Lamplighters League, Paradox and Harebrained parted ways earlier this year, allowing Harebrained to pursue its own indie agenda.
Now, the studio is back with Graft, a game that "splices together tense survival horror with a dark RPG experience", according to the description on its official Steam page.
Graft will take place aboard the Arc, a "continent-sized station filled with biomechanically enhanced citizens". Since this is a cyberpunk RPG, you probably know how that's going to go.
Inevitably, the superstructure slowly begins to succumb to some kind of unknown decay, and so you must escape the Arc, navigating its winding pathways and labyrinthine corridors in order to scavenge resources and search for a way out.
According to Harebrained, Graft will offer "a visceral new twist on classic survival horror combat". From the brief gameplay teaser included on the Steam page, it doesn't look like the game will have turn-based battling.
It will, however, allow you to augment your body with the titular Grafts, which are essentially parts you can scavenge from your foes or find scattered across the Arc. Each Graft "carries with it some small piece of its previous owner", Harebrained says.
Grafts will flood your system with "strange cravings and half-glimpsed memories", and you'll need to work out "what each of these fragments means to you". The Steam page rather heavily leans on the Ship of Theseus metaphor, wherein a ship's parts are gradually replaced until nothing of the original ship arguably remains.
We don't have a release date for Graft yet, and we also don't know if it's coming to consoles or not. Stay tuned for more on this one as and when we get it.
