of the original for a modern audience.
Following a change of release date
from December 2017 to the second
quarter of 2018, it became clear that
the developers became too ambitious
and feature-creep caused the team to
lose control of development.
Then in early 2018 the game was
put on hiatus. Things were lookinggrim, but the decision was made to
go back to Nightdive’s original plan
to stay as close to the original as
possible. This involved reducing the
size of the development team to make
a more concentrated one. And now
new footage has surfaced which has
revitalised our excitement.Hacker’s delight
Although veteran game designer and
writer Chris Avellone joined the team
to rework dialogue and fix plot holes
in the story, System Shock will remain
faithful to the original. It takes place in
the year 2072 and follows the exploits
of a nameless cyberspace hacker who,
after a bit of mischief, finds himself
under arrest and at the mercy of a
corrupt executive from the TriOptimum
Corporation. With the prospect of
all charges being dropped, and the
promise of a new neural interface
that will aid his hacking abilities, the
hacker agrees to carry out a mission
on Citadel Station, a TriOptimum
space station orbiting above Saturn.
The mission involves reprogramming
SHODAN (Sentient Hyper-Optimised
Data Access Network), the AI that
controls the station, and stealing a
mutagenic virus. The mission is an
apparent success and the hacker gets
his implant. But the operation puts
the hacker in a six-month coma. He
awakens to find that the space station
has been commandeered by SHODAN.
Freed from the shackles of ethics, the
AI has slaughtered all of the humans
on the station and it’s up to the
hacker to save the day.
As big fans of System Shock we’re
glad to know that things are going
smooth once again, but we’ll feel a lot
better once the game’s released. QWell, it looks like we can all breathe
a sigh of relief as development for
the remake of everyone’s favourite
immersive sci-fi sim is back on track.
Developer Nightdive Studios released
a video preview of the System Shock
remake’s opening area to show off its
finalised visuals, and it looks great.
When the game was announced as
a reimagining, everyone was excited.
System Shock is a beloved title, and it
inspired the creation of many classics
such as BioShock, Deus Ex and Prey
to name a few, but the remake has
seen a troubled development period.
After being funded on Kickstarter for
over $1.3 million in 2016, the team
ploughed ahead with its vision. It
was to feature many overhauls and
changes, but would capture the spiritArkane Studio’s Prey (2017) contained technology called Looking Glass, a clear reference to the original System Shock developers
BELOW Nightdive’s
System Shock
remake certainly
looks a lot
better than the
1994 original.
System Shock
Return to a shiny new Citadel
Station in this highly
anticipated sci-fi remake
Adam Bryant
PUBLISHER NIGHTDIVE STUDIOS DEVELOPER NIGHTDIVE STUDIOS
ETA 2020“The decision
was made to
go back to
Nightdive’s
original plan”
038 THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE
PREVIEW