Warren Spector Not Working on System Shock 3; Game Completely in Tencent's Hands
Warren Spector and studio OtherSide Entertainment are likely no longer involved in the work on System Shock 3. Chinese company Tencent, which was said to have subsidized the game, now appears to have full control over the project.
- According to Warren Spector, neither he nor OtherSide Entertainment have been working on System Shock 3 since three years;
- That's when the rights to the game were acquired by the Chinese company Tencent, which is to develop the project further;
- Spector his team are creating a new game IP as a fully independent studio.
Less than two weeks ago we informed about Warren Spector and OtherSide Entertainment working on a new game brand, where the key element will be the story, and in particular, the decisions made by the player. It seemed at the time that the developer intends to work on this project parallel to System Shock 3. However, from a recent interview Spector gave to VentureBeat, it seems that both he and OtherSide Entertainment have not been working on the latter game for three years now.
When asked about the third part of this iconic series, the father of the brand answered rather laconically:
"We released a statement last year. There’s not much more to say at this point. Tencent is taking the franchise forward. It’ll be up to them to say what they want to say. There’s not much clarification I can give you. [...] We worked on it [System Shock 3 - ed. note] in 2018 and 2019. That was it."
It is worth mentioning here that the last solid information about System Shock 3 was made public in 2019. Warren Spector revealed then that the game will lack character classes and a traditional progression tree. Instead, it was to be based on two unique ideas that were supposed to distinguish it from the competition. What ideas? We did not find out then - and it is possible that we never will.
In 2020, OtherSide Entertainment went through a wave of layoffs, after which it was announced that Tencent had bought the SystemShock3.com and SystemShock4.com domains. Initially, this meant that the Chinese giant would subsidize the third game, but in the end it appears to have taken full control of it.
It is difficult to determine the direction in which Tencent will develop the System Shock brand - if it does at all. As a consolation it is worth reminding that in 2022 we should expect the remake of the first game, which is being developed by Nightdive. Work on the game seems to be going quite well.
