Announcing the First Data Pack in the Upcoming SanSan Cycle

“Better genes for better lives.”
    –Jinteki

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of The Valley, the first Data Pack in the SanSan Cycle for Android: Netrunner!

As it boots up the SanSan Cycle, The Valley transports players deep into the heart of SanSan, the number one place for all the top tech. This American megacity sprawls along the California coastline from San Diego in the south to San Francisco in the north. There, you’ll also find Biotech Valley, most often called just “the Valley,” home to the world’s biggest biotech firms and its most advanced genomic research. Home, additionally, to Jinteki Corporation’s flagship American R&D facility, the J-Plex.

With its sixty cards (a complete playset of twenty-two different cards), The Valley explores Biotech Valley and its massive investment into bleeding-edge bioengineering. This is a meatspace heavily colored by genengineering, a highly educated workforce, tech startups, capital investments, and the presence of Jinteki’s J-Plex. You’ll find numerous assets, region ugrades, genetic resources, and a new Jinteki identity. Of course, even in the Valley, you’ll need more than good genes to get by; you’ll also find new programs, ice, and currents for both Corps and Runners.

Additionally, as the first Data Pack in the SanSan Cycle, The Valley introduces our new LCG® packaging to Android: Netrunner Data Packs. While the packaging is now molded plastic, every Data Pack still contains the full complement of sixty cards.

Lead Developer Lukas Litzsinger on the SanSan Cycle

The SanSan Cycle is a worthy successor to the Lunar Cycle. We had a lot of fun exploring the moon as a a singular, geographic location, so when the time came to lock in the next cycle, it was something I knew we needed to continue.

Like the Lunar Cycle, most of the cards in the SanSan Cycle are inspired by the locations in which they’re set. SanSan is a megacity that stretches along the Californian coast, from San Diego to San Francisco. It is the cradle of high-end tech and a home to beautiful beaches. It is also still recovering from the Big One, the cataclysmic earthquake that opened up the San Andreas fault and redefined America’s western coast.

Unlike the Lunar Cycle, and for the first time in the history of Android: Netrunner, each Data Pack in the SanSan Cycle was designed individually before it was integrated into the whole. Each one tells a story about a specific part of SanSan and the people who live in it. You will discover the genetic experimentation of the Valley, dive deep into the criminal elements of the Underway, and experience the sights and sounds of a World Expo.

From a mechanical standpoint, the SanSan Cycle aims to shake up the metagame and force players to adapt. While many of the Corps in Heinlein and other parts of the world have trended toward scoring agendas from HQ with the use of SanSan City Grid (Core Set, 92), the Runners that learned their trade on the streets of SanSan have developed effective counter-measures to this strategy. But even as Runners find ways to slow the Corps down, the Corps get more benefits from scoring agendas, making each installed card all the more important.

This cycle also marks the addition of some extra rules complexity in the form of a double-sided identity, Jinteki Biotech (The Valley, 12). This was not a decision made lightly. We want to make sure that the game remains accessible to players, and one way to do that is by preventing complexity creep. I hope you agree that the small amount of additional rules are worth it when you see how the card functions (keep reading!). Among other things, I believe this identity is proof that, as the game evolves, we will continue to look for ways to bring exciting new concepts to life. It’s also our goal to introduce them in the simplest way possible.

We hope that you enjoy exploring SanSan as much as we enjoyed creating it!

Jinteki Biotech

The Valley is all about biotech, and there’s no bigger name in the field than Jinteki. Everything in The Valley is influenced in some measure by the corp’s work. Not even those runners who steal from Jinteki, seek to burn it down, or treat it as their playground find themselves immune to the allure of the megacorp’s work in genengineering.

For starters, The Valley introduces a new Jinteki identity, Jinteki Biotech, which comes with a unique distribution model within the Data Pack and a unique set of rules. While The Valley still comes with a complete playset of each of its cards, it doesn’t contain three copies of the same Jinteki identity. Instead, The Valley contains three copies each of its nineteen other cards and three different, double-sided versions of Jinteki Biotech. The front of each Jinteki Biotech is identical, and at the beginning of your game, you can swap your Jinteki Biotech for any other Jinteki Biotech. Then, the front text of Jinteki Biotech allows you to spend three clicks to “flip” the card, triggering one of three different back text abilities that trigger “When you flip this identity.”

What effects do each of these Jinteki Biotech identities have? Click on the images above to “flip” the cards and find out.

Jinteki have long been the masters of the Android: Netrunner shell game, and as we draw near their flagship American R&D facility, this identity only reinforces that factional strength.

Meanwhile, even as they work against the megacorp on the net, the game’s Runners take advantage of the genetic modifications that Jinteki offers. The Valley introduces no fewer than four different genetic resources that, like Enhanced Vision (The Valley, 5), each provide a unique benefit the first time each turn you meet its triggering condition. Moreover, if you spend enough time checking into the Gene Conditioning Shoppe (The Valley, 6), you can trigger your genetic resources up to two times each turn. And when you consider that these benefits are introduced at the outset of a cycle designed to slow down the Corp’s fast advance ambitions, it’s a sure bet that they’re going to pay off for some Runner. The question is, will it be you?

Nature Versus Nurture

Even as Jinteki continues its work with Genetic Resequencing (The Valley, 13), The Valley ensures that both Corps and Runners will find ample opportunities for investment, improvement, and new business ventures.

Welcome to Biotech Valley. It’s time to invest in your future!

The Valley is scheduled to kick off the SanSan Cycle in the first quarter of 2015.

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