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Hard Wired Island

Created by Paul "Ettin" Matijevic

A retrofuture cyberpunk tabletop RPG inspired by 90s anime.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Hard Wired Island: Second Gig now on KS
about 1 month ago – Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 05:34:24 AM

Hey folks! Some of you have noticed this already, but our major Hard Wired Island expansion is not only live on Kickstarter, but funded!

The cover of Hard Wired Island: Second Gig. Five cyberpunk characters - a heavily augmented woman, a man in a suit, a girl with a baseball bat, a girl with a guitar bag and amp, and an android woman in emo fashion - cross a busy street in a space station city.

Hard Wired Island: Second Gig expands the game with new Occupations, new character options, new locations, new characters, and new scenarios, including a chapter that advances the setting into the distant future of 2025. If you're interested, a preview with the new Occupations is available on DriveThruRPG and itch.io. Take a look if you haven't already!

That's the last post I'll make on that, so I'll see you around.

Announcing Hard Wired Island: Second Gig
6 months ago – Sat, Oct 18, 2025 at 08:12:25 AM

Two Hard Wired Island characters standing in front of a wall of graffiti: a tall woman with long brown hair, a mostly-cybernetic right side, and a cropped jacket and shorts, offering pocky to a shorter woman with shoulder-length purple hair, a varsity jacket, denim shorts, and a green guitar case slung to her back.
Art by Bernardo Curvello.

Hey folks! This is an official announcement that the next Hard Wired Island expansion is happening soon, and you can bookmark the pre-launch page.

Hard Wired Island: Second Gig is a full-length sourcebook that expands the game with new Occupations, new character options, more locations, more characters, and detailed factions—basically a bit of everything, with a little more focus on adventure hubs and plot hooks. There's also a new season of scenarios set in the distant future of 2025, another soundtrack, and some secret stuff I will surprise you with when it happens.

If you're keen, you can bookmark the page above to be notified on launch. It will probably be after Christmas so I'm not competing with, you know, Santa.

That's all for now! I'll see you later if/when there's more Hard Wired Island to report on.

Coming soon:
7 months ago – Thu, Sep 18, 2025 at 06:02:33 PM

The cover of a book called Hard Wired Island: Second Gig. The background is a daytime street in Grand Cross, Hard Wired Island's cylindrical space station city; the street continues on far into the distance until it's following the curve of the cylinder up and out of sight. Five people are crossing the street in the foreground, Beatles Abbey Road Cover style: a mysterious white-haired woman with heavy cybernetic augments and a heavy coat, a large man with a purple suit and a nice hat, a pink-haired punk woman with shredded jeans, a big green jacket, and a baseball bat on her shoulder, a purple-haired rocker with a varsity jacket, carrying an amp and a guitar; and a dark-haired human-like android lady dressed like an emo. They're being watched by two armed surveillance drones (latest fad). There's also a cat sitting on a window several stories above the ground in the BG, which I think is neat.
Art by Luis Melo.

Hey! It's been a while. (If you missed me, I'm currently crowdfunding Cringe Wizard, a light novel about a guy living through the terrible TTRPG campaign he ran when he was a teen.)

After that though, we're doing a full Hard Wired Island expansion with new Occupations, new characters, and more setting. Hope to see you there!

Hard Wired Reprint
12 months ago – Sun, Apr 13, 2025 at 10:49:58 AM

Hey folks! Just popping in for one last update with some news:

We're currently crowdfunding a reprint of Hard Wired Island, since we sold out a long time ago. If you've been looking for a print copy, now's your chance!

Click here to check it out.

Every Hard Wired Island release + a new Kickstarter
almost 3 years ago – Sat, Apr 08, 2023 at 08:16:08 AM

Art by @boaillustration.

Long time no see! I was going to tell you about a new project, but I haven't told you about some Hard Wired Island releases yet, so let's open with that.

More Hard Wired Island

Here's everything that's been released besides the core book so far:

  • Tales From L5 (itch.io/DriveThruRPG): My last Kickstarter, for a set of HWI scenarios. The PDF came out recently, and there'll be a POD version from DriveThruRPG soon.
  • Tales From L5 OST (Bandcamp): neon shudder put together a little soundtrack expansion to go with Tales, and the tracks can work in a regular game too!
  • Occupation: The Cat (itch.io/DriveThruRPG): This PDF booklet, released last year, contains a new Occupation (and associated character options) for being a cat. It also contains a sneak preview of The Crosser, an Occupation planned for release in a future book.
  • Occupation: The Reborn (itch.io/DriveThruRPG): This one was released on April 1, and contains a new Occupation for being an isekai anime protagonist who was reborn on Grand Cross after being hit by a truck. (This one's not canon, obviously, so use at your own risk.) It has another sneak preview of The Crosser if that's what you're into.

Anyway:

New Project

For now, I've decided to take a break from Hard Wired Island with a smaller project.

Wetrunner is a more gonzo, rules-light cyberpunk heist game, set in an eternal-summer dystopia in the near-future of 2150. The climate collapse has devastated the oceans, and when fish became rare, the rich began to hoard them as a status symbol. You play criminals who break into corporate strongholds and steal their fish. It's inspired by Black Lagoon, Leverage, and a friend of mine tweeting "hey wouldn't a cyberpunk game about fishing be cool?".

If that sounds interesting to you, you can check it out here! We're already live and over half funded, and I've also promised to do a Forged conversion as a stretch goal if you'd like to make my life difficult.

I'll update this again when there's a new Hard Wired Island project. Until then, take care!