It seems like the long-in-development System Shock remake is actually going to arrive this year. The project was successfully crowdfunded back in 2015, but hit a speedbump three years later when developer Nightdive Studios admitted they’d taken a “wrong path” and squandered most of their Kickstarter cash. Development would later resume, but updates have been sporadic, leading some to believe the game would end up as vaporware. Thankfully, it seems that won’t be the case, as Nightdive have announced System Shock pre-orders will open in February.
PC pre-orders will open near the end of February on Steam, GOG, and the Epic Game Store. This will be accompanied by the release of our final demo which will include the medical level, cyberspace level, full dismemberment, all newly recorded voice lines, and a ton of additional features and polish. […] Console versions of the demo will come later.
Nightdive has also announced that anyone that pre-orders the System Shock remake will get System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition for free. Interestingly, it seems System Shock 2: EE has significantly expanded in scope, going from a simple remastering to something almost near a remake. Here are the new details…
System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition has evolved into more than what we were intending. This will be a complete source port to our KEX engine. All the character and weapons models are being remade, and we’ve received permission from the Shock community to include many of the mods that have become standard for many Shock 2 veterans.
These include:
- Vurt's Space Textures, Flora, Hi-res Water, Organics/Goo
- ACC's Four Hundred (400) Hi-res Terrain Textures
- Eldron's Psi Amp
- Olfred's Fixed Objects
- Grosnus' Hi-Res Spinning Marine/Navy/OSA logos
- SCP
- SHTUP
- ZylonBane's New Quest Notifier
- Vaxquis Vintage Song Remake v1.0 Mod
- Mercurius' Tacticool Weapon Replacements
Both the System Shock remake or System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition are currently without release dates, although Nightdive plans to release them “around the same time.” Both will launch on PC first with console releases coming later.
