Shadowrun Online Steam Early Access Begins March 31st

Those of us who helped fund the development of Shadowrun Online through Kickstarter received an email this morning revealing Cliffhanger's plans to bring the MMORPG to Steam Early Access this coming Monday, March 31st. For the sake of completeness, I'll quote it in its entirety:

I am proud to invite you to the SHADOWRUN ONLINE STEAM EARLY ACCESS Release on MONDAY, THE 31ST OF MARCH 2014!

This version is the earliest version of the game and will contain a small prequel to our campaign. This means that while you can get a good impression of what the core gameplay will be like, there are only fixed characters and no items or rewards in the game yet. It is mostly bug free, but it is not in any shape or form feature complete. We built it this way because it allows us to get feedback and work on the core gameplay before we move on to the next features of the game.

We will add new elements, tweaks and content every 4-6 weeks. We hope that this will allow growing and maturing the game together with you, our players and give us the information we need to stay on the right track. The things that are on the menu for the future are:

'¢ Class-Free Character Creation: Create your own Shadowrunner and skill any way you want, with a ton of visual customisation options.
'¢ Items: Weapons, armour and cyberware, magic talismans and cyberdecks: Loot them, buy them or upgrade existing items. Our item system separates the visual aspects from the item ability, so no need to wear a silly hat just for the bonus it grants!
'¢ Co-op or single player mission gameplay: Play with your friends or lead a team yourself, when you want to play solo.
'¢ Dynamic Security and Alarm Levels: Depending on what you do in a mission you may trip alerts, making some missions more difficult or shut off the alarm in time.
'¢ PvP duels and PvP Missions: Test your Shadowrunners in PvP against other players.
'¢ Evolving world campaign: New content will be released based on the collective actions of the players. This is your world!
'¢ Tough missions: Because life in the shadows is never easy!

I would like to thank you for your continued support and trust while we're developing Shadowrun Online! We are working hard on creating a game that is worthy of the great fans.