The latest Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter update has unveiled the first piece of concept art for Harebrained Schemes' next Shadowrun game. Word of the new game first surfaced by way of an October job listing that mentioned "our next Shadowrun game," and the studio confirmed that it was in the works in a separate update posted last week.

"Here's a piece of look & feel concept art for our new setting," the studio wrote in the brief update. "We'll show how it translates into Shadowrun's isometric gameplay view when our Kickstarter launches in January!"

Commenters noted that the image could indicate the game will take place in Tokyo or Shanghai, but the great likelihood is that it will actually go down in Hong Kong. RPG Codex noticed that the filename of the teaser image on the Shadowrun Universe website is "HK-KS-Teaser," and also pointed out that Hong Kong came in a close second in the "2nd City Survey," ultimately won by Berlin, that determined the setting for Shadowrun: Dragonfall.

Going by the Shadowrun Wikia, Hong Kong—the Hong Kong Free Enterprise Zone, in game parlance—sounds like a pretty interesting place. Overcrowded, violent, and utterly in the grip of unchecked corporate powers, perhaps, but isn't that just about exactly what you want from a pseudo-cyberpunk RPG? It sounds like a pretty good bet to me.

Harebrained Schemes did pretty well for itself with the Kickstarted RPG Shadowrun Returns and its follow-up, Shadowrun: Dragonfall. Yet its next project, announced last week, is something entirely different: A sharply-stylized Roguelike entitled Necropolis. But there's apparently more Shadowrun on the way, too.

Back in early October, Harebrained posted a job listing for a lead artist who will "guide art production on our next Shadowrun game." The position requires planning and executing "a riveting new story in the Shadowrun Universe, based on our existing franchise art direction"; applicants must have knowledge of the Shadowrun universe, or at least a "general love for sci-fi and cyberpunk," and must also have seen Blade Runner at least once. (Seriously, it's in the posting.)

Harebrained hasn't responded to a request for clarification, but "our next Shadowrun campaign" seems pretty black and white to me. It doesn't seem likely to be a mistaken post, given that it's been up since October 8. (It only just came to widespread attention over the weekend, thanks to an RPG Codex post that was actually about the Necropolis announcement.) And really, given the generally positive response the first two games have received, why wouldn't they make another Shadowrun game?

If Harebrained does get back to us, we'll update you.