Harebrained, the studio behind Shadowrun Returns and BattleTech, dropped a chilling new trailer for Graft on December 13, 2025. Titled “Inosculation” after the biological phenomenon where two trees grow together, the trailer showcases the game’s disturbing central mechanic: ripping body parts from fallen enemies and grafting them onto yourself to survive on a dying space station the size of a continent.
What Inosculation Actually Means
The trailer’s title carries deeper meaning than you might think. Inosculation is a natural phenomenon where the trunks, branches, or roots of two trees grow together. When trees touch and their bark wears away through wind movement, they eventually self-graft and fuse as they expand. It’s nature’s version of grafting, which makes it a perfect metaphor for what you’ll be doing throughout this survival horror RPG.
Just as two trees become one through inosculation, you’ll be merging pieces of other beings into your own body, fundamentally changing what you are. The question the game poses is classic Ship of Theseus territory: if you replace enough parts of yourself with pieces from others, are you still you? That’s some heavy philosophical horror, and Harebrained seems committed to exploring it fully.
Tear, Graft, Transform
The core gameplay loop sounds equal parts strategic and horrifying. As you explore the Arc, a continent-sized space station in ruins, you’ll encounter nightmarish monsters and hostile survivors. Combat isn’t just about defeating enemies – it’s about what you can harvest from them afterward. Every defeated foe potentially carries body parts you can graft onto yourself, gaining new abilities and transforming your physical form.
But here’s the twist that elevates Graft beyond typical body horror. Each grafted part carries fragments of its previous owner’s consciousness. When you attach someone else’s arm to your body, you don’t just get their strength or abilities. You also inherit their memories, impulses, and obsessions. These mental fragments become part of you, influencing your decisions and potentially changing your personality.
The Steam description puts it ominously: “You must choose what each of these fragments means to you, and you must live with the consequences of each choice.” Will you embrace these foreign thoughts and let them reshape your identity? Or will you resist, clinging to whatever sense of self remains as you bolt increasingly alien parts onto your body?
The Arc: A Dying World
The setting itself sounds like a nightmare. The Arc was once humanity’s technological beacon, a continent-sized space station filled with biomechanically enhanced citizens working toward some greater purpose now lost to time. Something went catastrophically wrong, leaving the station dark, decaying, and overrun by monstrosities.
Your city has fallen. You’re fighting to survive outside its walls in a world where power and light are precious, scarce resources. The Arc contains powerful and unsettling technologies from ages past, if you can live long enough to find and master them. You’ll traverse yawning chasms, self-replicating labyrinths, and techno-catacombs as you search desperately for a way off this dying station.
The environment description reads like BioShock meets Dead Space meets System Shock 2. Ancient feral experiments, strange abominations, and ruthless AI agents stalk you through corridors and vast open spaces. The scale of the Arc means diverse environments and threats, preventing the game from feeling repetitive despite its survival horror focus.
Real-Time Combat With a Twist
This represents a major departure for Harebrained. The Shadowrun trilogy and BattleTech were turn-based tactical games where you carefully plotted every move. Graft switches to real-time action combat, though it maintains the studio’s strategic DNA through resource management and battle selection.
You won’t be able to fight every enemy you encounter. Ammunition, health supplies, and useful grafts are all limited resources. You’ll need to carefully pick which battles to fight and which threats to avoid or sneak past. The survival horror aspect means sometimes the smartest choice is running away and living to graft another day.
Your transforming body becomes your most powerful weapon. As you collect grafts and build out your abilities, you’re essentially creating your own character build based on what parts you find and choose to attach. Want to focus on melee combat? Graft stronger arms. Need better perception? Maybe those eyes you tore from that abomination will help. Each graft changes not just your capabilities but your appearance, making you increasingly monstrous as you adapt to survive.
Form Fragile Alliances
You’re not entirely alone on the Arc. Other survivors remain, though as the game warns, anyone still living is likely both dangerous and treacherous – and that includes you. You can form fragile alliances with these characters and potentially build them into deeper relationships. The choices you make will shape your journey and decide the fates of those you meet.
This is where Harebrained’s RPG pedigree shines through. The studio excels at creating memorable companion characters with complex motivations and satisfying story arcs. Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Shadowrun: Hong Kong featured some of the best-written companions in modern RPGs, characters you genuinely cared about and wanted to protect.
In Graft’s context, these relationships take on added weight. If you’re slowly becoming less human through your grafts, do your allies still trust you? Do you still trust yourself? The game explores what it means to maintain human connections while your humanity literally transforms into something else.
Harebrained’s Rocky Road
| Year | Event | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 2013-2015 | Shadowrun Trilogy | Critical and commercial success |
| 2018 | BattleTech Release | Another hit, acquired by Paradox |
| 2023 | Lamplighters League | Commercial failure, mass layoffs |
| 2024 | Split from Paradox | Became independent, rebranded |
| 2024-2025 | Graft Development | First post-Paradox project |
Understanding Graft requires understanding where Harebrained is coming from. The studio rode high for years, delivering beloved RPG adaptations of Shadowrun and an outstanding turn-based take on BattleTech. Their games weren’t massive blockbusters, but they found devoted audiences and critical acclaim.
Paradox Interactive acquired the studio in 2018, which should have provided financial stability and publishing support. Instead, things went sideways. The Lamplighters League, a pulp adventure tactics game released in 2023, flopped hard despite being actually pretty good. Weak sales led to mass layoffs even before the game’s launch, and eventually Paradox cut Harebrained loose entirely.
Now independent and rebranded simply as “Harebrained” (dropping the “Schemes” part), the studio is working with a reduced headcount. Executive producer Mike McCain acknowledged in March 2024 that the smaller team led them to revisit project scope. Graft might be a more focused, smaller-scale experience than BattleTech or the Shadowrun games, but that’s not necessarily bad.
Sometimes constraints breed creativity. The six-hour phenomenal experience beats the 20-hour slog. If Harebrained can nail the core horror atmosphere, the grafting mechanics, and tell a compelling story about identity and transformation, Graft could be exactly what the studio needs to prove it still belongs in the conversation.
What We Still Don’t Know
Despite multiple trailers and the Steam page, key details remain mysterious. There’s no release date or even a release window. The game is confirmed for PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, but no console versions have been announced. Given Harebrained’s smaller size post-layoffs, a PC-only launch makes sense as a starting point.
We haven’t seen extensive gameplay footage yet. The announcement trailer from September 2024 showed some prototype gameplay, but the Inosculation trailer focuses more on atmosphere and concept than mechanics. How does combat actually feel? How smooth are the grafting animations? What does the character customization system look like when you’re building a body from scavenged parts?
The scope also remains unclear. How big is the playable area of the Arc? How many hours of content should players expect? Is this a 10-hour focused experience or a 30-hour sprawling RPG? The reduced team size suggests something more compact, but Harebrained hasn’t confirmed specifics.
Why This Matters
Graft represents a critical moment for Harebrained as a studio. After the Lamplighters League disaster and the split from Paradox, they need a win. More importantly, the gaming landscape needs studios like Harebrained succeeding. They make thoughtful, story-driven RPGs with unique settings and mechanics. They’re not chasing live service trends or battle royale fads. They’re making weird, interesting games for players who want something different.
The shift to survival horror and real-time combat could alienate some fans who loved the turn-based tactics of Shadowrun and BattleTech. But it could also bring in new audiences who might have bounced off turn-based gameplay. The body horror grafting system offers gameplay hooks that sound genuinely novel, not just another clone of existing mechanics.
If Graft succeeds commercially and critically, it could give Harebrained the runway to return to beloved franchises. Imagine a new Shadowrun game built with the lessons learned from Graft. Or a BattleTech sequel that benefited from years of community feedback on the first game. Success here opens doors for future projects.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Inosculation mean?
Inosculation is a natural phenomenon where two trees grow together. When tree trunks, branches, or roots touch and their bark wears away, they sometimes self-graft and fuse as they expand. It’s a perfect metaphor for Graft’s mechanics of merging body parts from different beings.
When will Graft be released?
Harebrained has not announced a release date or window for Graft. The game was first revealed in September 2024, so it’s likely still relatively early in development. Based on typical development timelines, 2026 seems like a reasonable guess, but nothing is confirmed.
What platforms will Graft support?
Graft is confirmed for PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store. Console versions have not been announced, though they’re not ruled out either. The studio’s smaller size post-layoffs suggests they’re focusing on PC first.
Is Graft turn-based like Shadowrun and BattleTech?
No. Graft features real-time action combat, a major departure from Harebrained’s previous turn-based tactical games. However, it maintains strategic elements through resource management and the need to carefully choose which battles to fight.
How does the grafting system work?
Players can harvest body parts from defeated enemies and graft them onto themselves, gaining new abilities and transforming physically. Each graft also carries fragments of its previous owner’s consciousness, bringing memories and personality traits that become part of you. This creates both gameplay builds and narrative consequences.
What happened to Harebrained Schemes?
Harebrained was acquired by Paradox Interactive in 2018. After their 2023 game The Lamplighters League flopped commercially, the studio went through layoffs and eventually split from Paradox in 2024. They’re now independent again and rebranded simply as “Harebrained.”
Will there be companions or NPCs to interact with?
Yes. The game features other survivors you can form alliances with and potentially develop deeper relationships. Harebrained is known for excellent character writing from the Shadowrun games, so expect meaningful companion interactions despite the horror setting.
Is Graft connected to BattleTech or Shadowrun?
No. Graft is an entirely new IP with a post-cyberpunk survival horror setting. It has no connection to the BattleTech or Shadowrun universes, though thematically it shares some DNA with Shadowrun’s blend of technology and body modification.
The Wait Begins
The Inosculation trailer establishes Graft’s disturbing tone and unique premise, but we’re still waiting for deeper looks at gameplay systems and concrete release information. What we’ve seen suggests Harebrained is swinging for the fences with something genuinely different, a horror RPG that uses body modification as both mechanic and metaphor.
The philosophical questions at the game’s core – what makes us human, how much can we change before we’re no longer ourselves – have been explored in science fiction for decades. But few games have tackled these themes through mechanics as directly as grafting literal pieces of other beings onto your body. If Harebrained can make that system feel meaningful rather than gimmicky, they might have something special.
For now, all we can do is wishlist the game on Steam and wait for more information. The studio that gave us some of the best tactical RPGs of the past decade is trying something completely new. That’s either going to result in a brilliant reinvention or a fascinating failure. Either way, it’s worth paying attention to. Harebrained isn’t playing it safe, and in an industry increasingly dominated by safe sequels and proven formulas, that boldness deserves support.