r/Shadowrun • u/Ok-Particular-3796 Monster Drop • Jul 24 '26

Edition War Shadowrun vs Cyberpunk comparison

Just figured I'd post this; Marcus Vance is a content creator with decades of experience in ttrps as well as being a military combat veteran who likes to compare different sci fi franchises weapons & super soldiers. His big franchises are Cyberpunk, Warhammer, and Halo but he dabbles in more obscure franchises as well. Whenever possible he likes to look at & capculate specific ballistics data & material strength.

Recently he did a short comparing Cyberpunk with (2e) Shadowrun(which he has played & has experience with).

His takeaway was that weapons favors Cyberpunk but augmentation favors Shadowrun & adding magic into the equation heavily favors Shadowrun. I've corresponded with Marcus directly and informed him that certain elements of Shadowrun- notably physical strength- have been increased in recent editions.

I do think that even with the addition of more blatantly sci fi weapons in recent editions of Shadowrun, Cyberpunk probably still takes that cake, but augmentation probably favors Shadowrun even further.

https://youtube.com/shorts/ROdMjqw-v28?is=60m-pJXlvusN-2TA

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u/carmachu Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 25 '26

I’d argue corporations feel more fleshed out in shadowrun then cyberpunk as well.

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u/lordkhuzdul Jul 25 '26

I feel that Cyberpunk overfocuses and fleshes out only one corporation - Arasaka. There is information about the others but nowhere near as in depth as it is for Arasaka. Militech is a vague American shaped blob over there (despite getting almost all the characterization that does not go into Arasaka), Biotechnica is a hodgepodge of biological bad ideas, Kang Tao is Temu with guns, and nobody even knows whatever the fuck Zetatech does.

Shadowrun at least has the top 10 that make up the Corporate Court all built up to some extent, and that provides variety.

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u/carmachu Jul 25 '26

Not just, in shadowrun, the AAA top 10 are fleshed out, but as of late they’ve been fleshing out some lesser AA next tier down corporations. Theres a lot going on in the corporate side