Harebrained Schemes has done pretty well for itself with the Shadowrun franchise, ringing up $1.8 million on Kickstarter for Shadowrun Returns in 2012, followed by the Shadowrun: Dragonfall expansion (and later, a stand-alone Director's Cut) and Shadowrun: Hong Kong, which is still in development. But in a recent interview with Game Informer, Harebrained co-founders Jordan Weisman and Mitch Gitelman suggested that the studio may move on to something new, that's based on something old.

"There s a very real chance of us pushing the size of the studio just a little bit more," Gitelman said. "What s great is that we greenlit this original IP, Necropolis, but there are other IPs that we ve created in the past that we are very interested in. Maybe soon."

"We re not going to say yet, but one of my old children may be coming home to roost," Weisman added.

Those "children" almost certainly refer to either Battletech/Mechwarrior or Crimson Skies, and the smart money looks to be on the former. Harebrained tweeted a link to the Game Informer story shortly after it went up, which is no big deal, but then so did Russ Bullock, the president of Mechwarrior Online studio Piranha Games. A Piranha Games rep declined to comment on the matter, but confirmed that the studio still holds the publishing rights to the Mechwarrior franchise, which it acquired in full last year following its split from former Mechwarrior Online partner Infinite Game Publishing last year.

It might not mean anything—but then again, it might. We've reached out to Harebrained Schemes for comment, and will update if and when we receive a reply.

Update: Unsurprisingly, Harebrained has also declined to comment. "We aren't prepared to talk about anything right now," a rep said, "but we are excited about the future and the chance to bring another one of Jordan's classic IPs into Harebrained Schemes where we can give it the love and care we've given to Shadowrun."

Having people constantly throwing money at you must be awful. It's never happened to me, thank GOD, but if it did I imagine I'd be spending my time slumped on my couch—one outstretched arm shading my forehead from the weight of all that cash.

Some people are forced to live this terrible life. For instance, Harebrained Schemes, who went to Kickstarter to ask for $100,000 with which to create a new Shadowrun game. Called Shadowrun: Hong Kong, the game raised its total within two hours. Now they're up to $690,000 and people keep giving them money. Nightmare.

Fortunately, there were stretch goals in play, adding new characters, new sidequests and expanded systems. Those stretch goals stop at $700,000—a total that will almost certainly be met before the campaign's 22 remaining days are up.

What happens after that? What happens at $1 million? In a new update, the team explains exactly what.

The answer, simply, is that the game will get a secondary Shadows of Hong Kong Mini-Campaign set after the events of the main game. This extra will provide around four to five hours of additional story, and will let players import their Shadowrun: Hong Kong character.

"The Shadows of Hong Kong Mini-Campaign will come out sometime before the end of 2015," explains Harebrained, "and will be free to Backers at the $15 pledge level and up."

Shadowrun: Hong Kong itself is due out mid-2015.

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.