Shadowrun Online fans have been patiently waiting for some in-game screenshots, videos, extensive news, or anything really. The development of the title has been a stalled in recent month, but that’s about to change according to the latest update. If all goes as planned, the first playable version of the game should be ready in late March and will allow a few players the chance to get in and test a few missions and experience an early version of the core gameplay.

The blog explains that one of the reason behind the delay in development was the need to find additional financing beyond the $558,863 raised through Kickstarter. And does that really surprise anyone?

“So why does it take us so damn long? For one, as many of you know, we had to find more budget for the game whilst not going to a publisher to get it. This was not an easy task. It actually took us almost a year to get the game securely funded (in the way we wanted it). That is the harsh truth of an independent developer: Even projects of limited ambition are hard to do with a small team and an MMO for that matter is not an easy thing to create.”

So how did they do it you ask? According to the blog, the team cross-financed the title with another project that’s currently in alpha on Steam and Android devices called AERENA. After that there was a lot of prototyping. The last half of the blog delves into some of the early concept design of levels and the cover system along with a few images.

In any case, cross your fingers if you’ve been waiting for this one and maybe it will pick up speed in March.

Source: Shadowrun Online Blog