Despite several warnings, I decided to buy this book. Mostly because I was always a fan of the matrix und the main driver for my own characters, essentially the reason why I started with SR in edition 1.

After reading thru it, I can agree to some points already stated here or on other reviews. It delivers not so much really new, which is disappointing for a core rulebook. While also not including all past stuff from older publications. Till the present day, there is not a single place to look for previously published echos for example. I still need several books, even from different editions.

It reads as too much recycling of already published content with slight adjustments while also skipping previously published content.

Also, I'm not really sure that the current writers are having a real vision for the Matrix/Resonance and it gets further down the already started road. Getting Resonance and Matrix even more aligned with Magic, to the point where Resonance realms and metaplanes...See more are getting connected.
This might be fine for some, I personally think it's getting to far and is oppisite to the original idea.

In retrospect, I believe one of the main points is coming from the drive to let the game time process with the real world, forcing the writers to think about how such technology could look like in the 2080th, ultimately failing with visions and just variations of the current content.

Especially in the chapters regarding technomancers (echos) and sprites. It is, for me, uncreative and washed up content or content ported from the magic book. Catalyst has lost the narrative on the matrix entirely and is reforming it to a second hand magic world.

While for the magic world one can nearly freely invent and make up stuff, for technology this is not really working fully out. And after reading this book, one can feel the missing ideas.

I agree Rion S and his writings, sometimes it is not really clear what the writers wanted to tell or expect full knowledge of other publications. If I need to cross read a core rule book to understand it, that it is a bad product for me. A core rule book needs to be clear, understandably and with as possible no places for interpretation. Also for people who are not living all day in the SR books.

Editing and layout did not really hurt me, I can overlook this. If anything, the heavy use of graphics, background stuff, is blowing the file up (107MB) and just forces one to read on a tablet or computer. I would like to have a smaller, more streamlined, version. In the end, this is a digital product. (Hint: even on a kindle scribe with the bigger screen, the book dies not look good. First edition and second edition publications are way better). I'm buying it for the content, not for nice graphics. Then I would buy the paper version.

For me, this was the last 6th edition book I bought, I don't see how Catalyst will get a turnaround for (in my opinion) good content regarding the P&P.
It feels more and more that the SR license should be handed towards someone other where content matters, not the visuals. And content should be high quality, not content to have content. The technonancer and resonance chapters are really hurting.

If it would be possible: throw the current approach away and let the matrix / resonance be their own thing and not try to integrate resonance into magic.
Or simply fire the people who think this was a good idea. It is not. It is bad writing without innovative ideas. it is recycling out off a lack of ideas. If there is noting new, just don't publish anything for the sake of publishing.

Therefore I can agree Rion S and also issue a buyers beware. Also I can agree Henry, the content is ... well.


With a small exception, when Pegasus Press is publishing an own book, German centered. They have to far, good writers where it is really fun reading.

People should just abandon this line. Catalyst is never going to get any better until they are punished somehow for putting out shoddy work. Anyone that buys this or anything else from them is hurting the gaming community. There is no excuse for what the reviewer describes.

I'll do a review and rating when I get a chance to read more, but here's the Buyer Beware factor: This has some of the roughest editing since the core book first came out. Core concepts are sometimes badly described, rules are occasionally absent from within their own descriptions in a few places, and information organization is very poor. If all you had to go on before buying this was the SR6 core book, you would be immediately lost upon trying to read it from front to back. This book is not friendly to new players, or to those who aren't conversant SR5 Matrix lore.

It has some very good and fun ideas, and some useful rules, but in some places it's very hard to discern what they are even talking about. Lots of jargon, slang, and vaguery in critical places. The glossary being 30 pages in is very unhelpful. Editing and layout really hurt the product more than the lack of clarity in the prose parts does. Quality within each segment is erratic. Some is very clear, other parts are real overly...See more wordy head-scratchers.

Major backslide from the quality highpoint of Sixth World Companion. Really needed better descriptions, editing and layout to help people understand what they are trying to convey. Keep this away from new runners just learning the rules, and from newer gamers until they are really ready. If you are a GM looking to add more Matrix content for 6e, but only know 6e, you may have a bad time trying to grasp it. The info is in there, and some is quite intriguing, but it's hard to extract and parse.