We didn’t know any better.”Ī screenshot from the Kickstarter pitch. And maybe this would give us a way to share this classic with the younger generation without having to explain “You can’t use the mouse to look around. What the Nightdive team seemed to be offering was a way to revisit the game with all those problems fixed. I didn’t notice those problems at the time because all of the technology was new and nobody knew how to do better. But then I launch the game twenty years later and discover the visuals are so blocky I can’t tell what things are, the font is illegible, the gameplay is awkward, and the interface is an abomination. The tricky thing about nostalgia titles is just how much we forget their faults. (Emphasis mine.) This was exactly what I was looking for: The game as I remember it. Many improvements, overhauls and changes are being implemented to capture the spirit of what the original game was trying to convey, and bring it to contemporary gamers. But what really made me glad to put my money in was this blurb from the Kickstarter:Ī modern take on System Shock, a faithful reboot it’s not Citadel Station as it was, but as you remember it. So when I saw that Nightdive Studios was crowdfunding a remake of System Shock, I didn’t have much choice in the matter. The sequel, System Shock 2, is often considered one of the greatest games of all time Particularly for PC gamers above a certain age.

It’s a game I loved so much I novelized it. games, making it the progenitor of Thief, Deus Ex, BioShock, Prey, and (to a lesser extent) the Dishonored series. It was the first of the immersive sim This genre name is wonky and confusing now, but back in 1994 “sim” wasn’t so strongly associated with Will Wright-style simulations.

It was bound to happen sooner or later, but it really is a shame it happened to this project in particular.Īs I’ve said before, the 1994 classic System Shock was a really important game, both for the industry and on a personal level. I backed a Kickstarter project that spent the money and didn’t manage to create a product.

System shock 2 kickstarter