Now, Nightdive Studios looks ready to finally reveal what it has crafted with the $1.3 million dollars raised in 2016. The studio is the first to admit that its “development road was bumpy” in the Kickstarter update today for System Shock, but is apparently confident that the demo available now echoes the vision held when it undertook the task.
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Nightdive Studios says that it is projecting a late summer 2021 release date, and is now opening pre-orders on multiple PC platforms: the Epic Games Store, GOG, and Steam. Those that choose to pre-order are, as stated by Nightdive Studios on the Steam listing, eligible to receive System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition for free when it releases. The remaster is priced at $44.99, and once again features the cunning adversary of SHODAN as players strive to escape from the TriOptimum research facility. The final demo has been released today as well, highlighting the new look while offering concerns to some with controller support and the user-interface.
The remaster is not a 1:1 translation of the classic 1994 title, some purists will be quick to note. Nightdive Studios took liberties while recreating the sprawling research station to rebuild the maps, offering new secret areas and traps that may catch players expecting another similar playthrough off-guard. The legacy of the title, however, is one that could be hard to shake.
System Shock released in 1994 by Looking Glass Studios to critical acclaim, grabbing spots on multiple hall-of-fame lists as one of the best PC games ever. In spite of this, Looking Glass lost money on the development while managing to create an oppressive cyberpunk genre that Deus Ex and Bioshock would successfully echo. Now, after a difficult road in development, Nightdive Studios is bringing the iconic title to a new generation of players while eschewing the more dated UI and AI of the original.
Nightdive Studios isn’t keen to stop its revival process anytime soon after System Shock. The CEO of Nightdive was recently quoted as wanted to remake No One Lives Forever, a first-person shooter rife with references to the 1960s. Before that, however, the studio must release System Shock after its arduous development and prove to fans and critics alike that rumors of unrest within the studio are just that.
System Shock is scheduled to release in late summer 2021 for PC.
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Source: Kickstarter
