Gamers Hunter Edizioni has confirmed that their upcoming project, 2220 Cyberpunk RPG, will officially launch on BackerKit on 7 April. The announcement follows a targeted marketing stunt on 1 April where the studio claimed the project was “delayed by Corpos”, a move intended to mirror the game’s dystopian themes of corporate interference.
The project represents a significant shift for the Italian indie scene, moving away from the “Spaghetti Fantasy” tropes often exported from the region into a grimmer, mutated industrial aesthetic. Created by Luca Magorosso Leurini and written alongside Andrea Orrù and Antonio Scalas, the game has undergone over two years of playtesting at major Italian conventions, including Lucca Comics & Games.
Narrative Weight
While the core world-building remains with the founding team, the campaign is bolstering its narrative credentials by recruiting veteran freelance designer Marco Fossati. Known for a prolific output on the Dungeon Masters Guild and work for high-profile third-party publishers, Fossati has penned an exclusive adventure titled The Girl Behind the Skull as a reward for backers who join the campaign within the first 72 hours.
The Neapolitan Connection
Though the studio is based in Italy, and the included quickstart adventure is hyper-locally set in Naples, featuring landmarks such as the Hospital of the Sea (Ospedale del Mare) and the cherry orchards on the slopes of Vesuvius. This Mediterranean-cyberpunk flavour provides a distinct cultural texture to the “Undivided European Federation” (UEF), the game’s primary political power.
A 5e Legacy Engine
The game is explicitly compatible with the 2014 D&D 5e ruleset, rather than the more recent 2024 updates. However, it introduces several “mutations” to the standard d20 engine to reflect a more lethal, resource-managed reality:
- Exhaustion as Lethality: In a departure from “super-heroic” combat, levels of Exhaustion are the primary cause of death, forcing players into more tactical, cover-based encounters.
- Wealth System: Characters track resources via a 0–10 “Wealth” scale rather than counting individual coins, focusing on social status and purchasing power.
- Psychomezamilism: The game replaces traditional magic with psionics derived from the “Malstraum Connection”, a collective consciousness linking human minds with neural networks.
- Mutation and Origin: Players choose between “Pure” humans and “Mutants”, such as the lanky Tutsi or the AI-controlled Piloted, each facing varying degrees of societal discrimination.
Connectivist Cyberpunk
Inspired by a 2014 connectivist manifesto, the world of 2220 explores the “blurred line” between the digital and physical. Characters are often immigrants who violate the “Policy of the Wall” to seek a better life in the UEF, navigating a society where high technology coexists with a low quality of life.
2220 RPG is a cyberpunk tabletop RPG where technology replaces magic, psionic abilities threaten your imagination, and every choice leaves a scar”.
The decision to stick with the 2014 5e engine while the industry pivots to the 2024 revision may raise questions for some backers about long-term compatibility. Additionally, the “April Fool’s” prank regarding a delay, though thematic, remains a risky engagement strategy in a crowdfunding market currently sensitive to genuine production and shipping hurdles.
