System Shock Remake is Almost Done
System Shock Remake awaits some final touches. Devs at Nightdive announced that the game is almost finished.
The incredibly atmospheric remake of System Shock, based on the 1994 classic, is reportedly nearing completion. Such voice comes from Larry Kuperman, dev at Nightdive, the studio that undertook the task of creating a refreshed version of the iconic immersive sim.
System Shock Remake awaits final touches
Despite the creators' assurances that the game is already refined, we will probably wait for its release until the end of this year. Kuperman claims that the game has entered the stage of final polishing, which will take several months.
"Every level's here, every enemy is in place, every weapon is in place," Kuperman said. "Bug fixing is that last foray into the depths of hell" before it's truly done.".
Work on the remake of System Shock has been a six-year journey that began with a Kickstarter fundraiser, and slightly changed its direction in 2018. At the time, Nightdive felt that the title was straying too far from the original. They even decided to change the game engine from Unity to Unreal Engine. All indications are that the crisis has been averted and fans of the classic brand will receive a product that preserves its character while providing modern gameplay.
"We tried to stay very true to canon. That was something that was really important to us, that our core audience who are fans of System Shock can look at this and go 'yes, this is what I was looking for. It's the game that I know, but with polish.' (...) Every person on the team has invested hours and hours into how the original gameplay worked, but we also want to make sure this has a modern feel," said Kuperman.
Combining the old gameplay with a modern approach is supposed to mean, among other things, adding flavors such as more animations when reloading weapons or messages that appear on Citadel station monitors. By playing through the game's free demo available on Steam, we can delight in the great graphics, which, however, retains the retro spirit.
