- The game takes place in 2054 in Seattle. A second scenario taking place in Berlin will come a little later.
- The starting point of the story is a sinister business of organ trafficking.
- As in the Super Nintendo Shadowrun game, Shadowrun Returns begins in a morgue.
- An investigator from the Lone Star Macklusky named Mitch is an important character, at least at the beginning of the game
- The atmosphere "film noir" is one of the major inspirations for developers
- Turn-based combat is inspired by XCOM (as the game of the 90s that the episode was released last year)
- Although not created one character early in the game, it is possible to recruit other shadowrunners. In combat, the player controls all team members (they are not managed by AI)
- The dialogue system is based on keywords
- The "investigation" is highly developed