A project to adapt Shadowrun for the Super NES had a turbulent history between 1989 and 1993, including having been halted in mid-development before being resumed in late 1992 under a tight deadline.

Its eventual lead designer was Pauli Kidd, creator of Beam Software's 1992 Nightshade, elements and a feel of which she then carried on to Shadowrun.

It was retrospectively acclaimed by several publications as an "ahead of its time" milestone in the history of the role-playing genre for the consoles and credited for having pioneered film noir style in video games.

A cursor system allows the player to scroll a pointer across the screen and perform various actions that include opening doors and passageways, examining and picking up objects, engaging in conversation with non-player characters (NPCs), and utilizing firearms and magic commands while in combat.

The player is given the option to hire other shadowrunners as henchmen with "nuyen", the game's currency that can also be used to purchase guns and certain key items scattered throughout various locations.

Combat within Shadowrun often requires sharp reflexes, as practically every screen contains hidden assassins who, from random locations, open fire on Jake; the player may retreat or must otherwise immediately find the source of the attack and respond.

During such scenes, the gameplay switches to a top-down perspective while an icon of Jake moves through cyberspace, fights intrusion programs, and retrieves data.

The rest of the story is spent investigating the events leading to Jake's shooting, learning the identity of the shapeshifter who saved him, as well the person who ordered his assassination, a mysterious crime lord named "Drake".

[5] The project was initially headed by Gregg Barnett until he abruptly left Beam midway through the game's development to start Perfect Entertainment in the United Kingdom.

[5] Having been hired by Beam's parent company Melbourne House, fantasy and sci-fi writer Pauli Kidd quickly took Barnett's place as lead designer.

[4][5] According to Kidd, the given timeframe for finishing Shadowrun for publisher Data East was very short, forcing the team to complete production in a tumultuous five and a half to six months.

[5] Aspects of Beam's earlier action-adventure game Nightshade, of which Kidd was the writer, director and lead designer, were used as a basis for Shadowrun; specific film noir components such as "dark cityscapes, dialogue-heavy exchanges, and touches of humor" were adapted directly from the former to the latter.

[6] To coincide with the last of these qualities, Kidd and programmer Jeff Kamenek altered the original "serious" tone of Shadowrun by replacing portions of the script and artwork with more comedic elements.

The war was reaching shooting level; old school creators who just wanted to make good games were being crushed down by a wave of managerial bull.

[28] IGN Australia listed Shadowrun among their favourite Australian video games in 2010, writing it was "without question, one of the best underexposed classics of the SNES era" because it presented players with "a mature narrative, strong characters and a dystopian backdrop" blended with traditional RPG elements in an "irresistible" way.

"[31] In 2002, GameSpot included it on the list of video games that should be remade and compared this "groundbreaking RPG" that was "truly ahead of its time" to the more recent Planescape: Torment.

[36] The 1998 PC RPG Alien Earth was declared a spiritual sequel to Shadowrun by Beam Software (which developed both games), with producer David Giles saying he hoped to "Keep the original's gameplay RPG/combat/adventure elements that people liked, but up the graphic side of it.