Catalyst Game Labs shared some "Year of Shadowrun" updates on the show floor at Gen Con, including an updated release projection for the Shadowrun: Crossfire deck-building card game.
 
"Right now we’re still in demo, that’s another 60 – 90 days before it hits stores," Rett Kipp, Catalyst Game Labs Marketing Head, said.  Shadowrun: Crossfire was originally projected to hit stores in the spring (see "Catalyst's Ambitious Plans for 'The Year of Shadowrun'"), before Shadowrun, Fifth Edition RPG launched. 
 
The card game is progressive, and as characters get stronger, the missions get tougher.  "It is cooperative, which is always a challenge in Shadowrun because you’re always out for yourself in Shadowrun," Kipp added.
 
Obviously, the big seller for Catalyst at its Gen Con booth was the Shadowrun, Fifth Edition RPG book.  Kipp shared that they had no plans to sell out at the show, "We brought an enormous amount of copies, with the intention of not selling out.  We have the advantage that we are going to do the PAX Prime show right after this and we shipped our remaining inventory to that, so we cover both shows with the inventory."  He added that the book should be shipping to trade shortly, and in stores in the next two to four weeks.

When asked if he had any idea how many people who bought the record-setting electronic copy (which has been the consistent #1 seller at DriveThruRPG for nearly 30 days) were also buying the book, Kipp said he wasn’t sure, "but from previous information, normal turnover is between 90 and 95 percent.  Always has been. It’s pretty constant inside the industry, actually." (For more information about the record-setting PDF release, see "'Shadowrun, Fifth Edition' Updates").
 
Catalyst has two more tabletop products planned for "The Year of Shadowrun" (which runs from May 2013 to May 2014):  the miniatures game Shadowrun: Sprawl Gangers, planned for late 2013 release, and the corporation-based board game Shadowrun: Hostile Takeover, which is planned for early 2014.
 
For Sprawl Gangers, Kipp said, "You’re going to be playing a street gang, where the Shadowrunners will be the big mercs that will super-help your teams.  It will come with two sets of miniatures.  There are unique miniatures for each gang, and then there’s a group of preset miniatures which cross over between them."

"They’ll be color coded, so that even out of the box you’ll be able to see which side is which, and obviously it will be designed so you can just go ahead and paint them," he continued.  As for future minis expansion sets for the game in the future?  "There will be more gang expansions, more minis for that one."
 
Catalyst also had updates for two of its other product lines: BattleTech and Leviathans.  They plan a late third quarter/early fourth quarter release for the BattleTech Intro Box Set, which has been out of print because of changeovers in China with the manufacturer.  Kipp said to expect much higher quality figures in this release, and two high end Mechs are being replaced with new editions: the Mad Cat and the BattleMaster.
 
Catalyst also announced relaunch plans for Leviathans, its alternate history 1910 tabletop air-combat warships game.  "We’re doing a Kickstarter to relaunch the line," said Kipp.  "One of the problems we have is that while we’ve created that beautiful coffin box, once the new fleets are out there, it makes it impossible from our standpoint to force people to buy something.  What we want is to repackage so that the core rules are now separate, so that when the multiple fleets that are available for the system come out, you can just pick a fleet."
 
Kipp added that there are plans for a retailer/distributor level in the Kickstarter.  "We’re trying to make sure it’s not just focusing on consumers, but it’s focused on our retailers and also our distributors as well, trying to get everybody involved to help out."  He added that the product will probably not hit store shelves for another 9 -12 months.