SYSTEM SHOCK
Rebooting the ’90s immersive sim with some hi-tech augmentations
Stephen Kick’s love of System Shock started in his school days, although it was the sequel that really left an impression. “I booted it up and thought, ‘OK, this is on another level’,” he says
Developer
Nightdive Studios
Publisher
Prime Matter, Plaion
Format
PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series
Origin
US
Release
2022
TOP Energy rechargers make an early appearance, refilling any depleted weapons or implants.
ABOVE The game’s development began in Unity, but the team soon decided it needed to switch to Unreal to realise its ambitions
TOP There’s a certain “graininess” in the look of the original, Kick says, that Nightdive is trying to capture in the remake.
ABOVE Terminals on the Citadel will send you into cyberspace, rendered as a neon-framed 3D maze.
LEFT Droids and cyborgs have a more fearsome presence now, their bulky bodies filling the cramped corridors
As if trying to comfort us with a recognisable dystopia, System Shock’s new intro bombards us with ’80s cyberpunk imagery. Observing through the windscreen of a flying car, we’re swept around angular skyscrapers in the pounding rain, then spy a lone hacker hunched over a computer in an executive office and switch to his view. He’s attempting to steal a valuable neural implant, but triggers an alarm, summoning armoured security who rendition him to a space station. Here he’s offered an ultimatum: disable the station AI’s ethical restraints, or die. The hacker complies, then loses consciousness as a guard injects him with anaesthetic.