Harebrained Schemes Discusses Three Major Lessons Learned From The Lamplighters League

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When it hit in 2023, The Lamplighters League was neither a triumph nor a failure. It was a novel turn-based tactical game set in an alternate 1930s and created by Harebrained Schemes, the team behind a series of popular Shadowrun and Battle Tech games.

While Lamplighters scored mixed to positive reviews and was played by nearly 400,000 people, a week after release, publisher Paradox Interactive called the “commercial reception” for the game weak and a “big disappointment.”

Harebrained, which was acquired by Paradox in 2018 and then nearly gutted months before Lamplighters League’s release, went on to regain its independence from Paradox months after the publisher announced it was writing off $22.7 million in predicted pre-tax profits from the game.

Looking back now, years removed from the process, members of the studio say there are some clear lessons to be learned from what went right and what went wrong in creating an entirely new property that some now call a hidden gem.

To continue reading this story head over to 80LV where this ran on April 15, 2025.