thanks for the replies, i think i will give it a go. i'll just replay the original again if it feels offensive. i will write my imperssons here later.
hi friend, thank you.731 Congrats on the mother of all delurks. Lurking for 8+ years.
I'd say it was significantly easier without mouselook once you managed to figure out the controls. You would just hide behind a corner so that only they very edge of your screen can see around it, the enemy would get stuck on the corner, then you'd target the exposed part of its sprite. That way, it can be shot until dead with no way to shoot you back. Most of the monsters in the game are OK with this. With the mouselook mod you'd actually have to expose yourself to fire and it played like janky Wolfenstein. Not a particularly deep combat system in either case.Many people commenting on original SS difficulty probably only played the mouselook version and it is a whole different game IMO.
When will additional stretch goals be implemented?
Stretch goals such as the ability to select gender are being worked on. We also will be implementing a certain feature you may have noticed is missing from System Shock. Oink oink.
August 2023 Update
Hello Hackers,
Since the launch of the PC version of the System Shock Remake, our team has been heads down, working to further improve the game as we near the digital console release. We’ve listened to your feedback and the ending of the game is receiving a complete overhaul.
That being said, we’re back with a few announcements that we wanted to share with the community.
ANNOUNCEMENT #1: The Physical Rewards Are Looking Good!
At Nightdive, we’re always wanting our physical releases to be the latest and greatest versions, either on Disc or on Cart to make sure our games are as polished as they can be when they arrive at your door.
It’s because of this that we are making our best efforts to get the latest and greatest version of the game onto the PC physical release. Players can expect the game to ship with, at a minimum, the 1.2 Patch on Disc and ready to go so you have to do as minimal downloading as possible when you get your copy.
Our partners over at Limited Run have done a fantastic job of helping us produce all of the remaining physical rewards.
Physical Manual
Currently all of the physical manuals have been sent off for printing. The cover will have a semi metallic finish!
Shirts
Final art has been submitted - we did have to alter the design of the Citadel Station shirt to meet printing limitations, but we’re really happy with the subtle design.
Big Boxes
The Big Boxes are finished! At the moment, we are waiting on getting the physical discs pressed and bundled with an included Steam key.
Here’s what the card code will look like:
This is a test fitting for the goodies, the final interior will be all black.
Pewter Figurines
Like we mentioned in prior posts, the Repair-Bot figure has been replaced with two pewter figurines.
ANNOUNCEMENT #2: Details on Patch 1.2
Below is a list of the upcoming items that we are excited to release in the next patch.
**WARNING STORY SPOILERS AHEAD**
Major
============
- Cloud Sync support has been added.
- Improved quest logic behavior across several areas of the game.
- Players can now no longer save over the AutoSave, and the AutoSave will now only appear in the Load Game menu.
- Game Over screen can now be skipped.
- Mission waypoints have been implemented for (Easy mission difficulty).
- Recycle Station ‘inventory’ size has increased to 4x3 from 3x3 to allow recycling of bigger junk items.
- The max payout from a Recycle Station is now 120 Credits.
- EMP stun duration has been reduced by 25%.
- SHODAN will lock the Research control room door if the player fires the Mining Laser at Earth.
- Detox patch now has a 25% protection bonus against environment hazards while active.
- Fix a soft lock that could occur when dying while interacting with a Surgery Machine.
- Items dropped inside of elevators should no longer disappear.
- Pathfinding performance improvements in Flight Deck and Groves.
- Fix a case where the player was able to clip through the world by loading games while crouched.
- Fix a case where plasma projectile FX would spawn every frame and wouldn’t clean up properly, causing major frame drops.
Minor
============
- SHODAN now has a surprise for the player when Diego is killed on the Security level.
- Total Enemy Reinforcements have been increased across all levels.
- Reduced the number of enemies that can bunch up in the same Reinforcement Volume.
- Enemies will remember the player for longer on all difficulties.
- Enemy line of checks include the projectile collision radius whenever possible so that their attacks fail less often.
- Fixed an enemy ambush that wasn’t activating properly in the Medical CPU room if the player comes back later in the game.
- Kickstarter corpse tokens added to enemies.
- Enemy awareness in the Flight Deck trap room after saving and loading has been fixed.
- Diego boss AI adjustments, largely in the first encounter.
- Cortex Reavers can now perform a strafe jump to more quickly engage the player.
- Mutated Cyborg and Tiger-Gorilla dismemberment has been fixed.
- Cyborg Mantis walks faster, will sprint more frequently, and HP increased slightly.
- Flier-Bots now have an Autocannon in addition to Gas Grenade attacks.
- Striker-Bots now have a Laser Cannon in addition to Homing Missile attacks.
- Flier-Bot and Striker-Bot textures have been improved.
- Fix for Hoppers and Mobile Lasers not being able to hit the player while leaning behind a wall.
- Security-1 Bot now has a rapid fire attack pose.
- Cyborg Warrior now has a moving attack similar to the Security-2 Bot.
- Cyborg Elite Guard head-mounted laser attack damage increased from 60 to 80.
- Alpha Strain long range attack now has a unique animation.
- Skorpion default inventory size has been reduced from 4x2 to 3x2.
- Assault Rifle damage increased slightly from 24 to 25 per round.
- Plasma Rifle now has an animation to unload the active Plasma Core.
- Abe Ghiran’s Head inventory size has been increased from 1x1 to 2x2.
- Missing character portraits have been added.
- Cyberspace I.C.E Shield FX has been improved.
- Wire Puzzle has new FX to more clearly indicate the required power level to solve it.
- Fix for Circuit Puzzle dead-end nodes filling from the wrong side in some cases.
- Fixed holes in the walls in Research tiles,
- Berserk patches now cost 5 Tri-Credits from a dispenser instead of 4.
- Shotgun ammo cost in Ammo Depots has been reduced from 15 to 14 credits.
- Loot table adjustments to reduce quantity of ammo received from Exec-Bots, Flier-Bots, Striker-Bots and Cyborg Enforcers.
- Ammo adjustments in Reactor, Alpha Grove, Delta Grove, Engineering, Security, and Bridge.
- Reduced the number of First Aid Kit pickups in Flight Deck, Security and Bridge.
- Assigned the correct idle animation to the Cyborg Drones (No more hovering guns while they are charging).
- Jump Jet improvements while in Low Gravity Volumes.
- Loading a save while falling will properly restore the player’s velocity.
- Barrel dispensers will no longer drop their dispensed barrels when the player leaves and comes back to a level,
- Energy Drain Mines will no longer prepend multiple “Destroyed” strings to their name after being repeatedly destroyed.
- Fix for player losing Low-Grav/Repulsor mods when switching to certain weapons.
- Improvements to how the enemy AI handles changing Repulsor Lift direction.
- Reactor’s Repulsor Lifts have been adjusted slightly to fix potential soft locks.
- Fix for the player being able to exit the Diego V1 arena by blocking main doorway.
- Doors will more elegantly restore their collision state when loading a save.
- Shotgun shell texture has been fixed.
- Crack-O’s are now no longer considered Junk.
- Fix for certain wall monitors not breaking when attacked.
- Fixed small animation issue with the Isolinear Chipset on the Bridge.
- Fixed sparking cable issues on Maintenance.
- Fix for several achievements not completing properly.
- Small text adjustments and spellings.
- Music playback adjustments.
- Fixed a potential audio component memory leak when concurrency limits were reached.
- Added a Controller Vibration accessibility option,
- Improved gamepad support on MFD,
- Improved automap performance.
- Fixed several visual artifacts on the automap.
- Automap will always update the map info bar with the data for the currently selected level.
- Implant tooltips will no longer display off the edge of the screen on certain display configs.
- Fix for the ‘Back’ button on gamepad causing the player to crouch when exiting menus.
- Credits updated.
- Other minor improvements, adjustments and balance tweaks.
ANNOUNCEMENT #3: System Shock Remake has been nominated for Best Audio Design & Game of the Year at Fear Fest.
Voting is closed, but the winners will be announced on September 7th, 2023 on IGN’s YouTube and Twitch channels.
More details here: https://www.horrorgameawards.com/
F.A.Q.
Questions from the community
When will the shipping of physical goods begin?
Once version 1.2 has been released we’ll begin pressing discs and shipping physical goods!
Console announcement date?
Console versions are running smoothly but need a few rounds of QA support before we move to certification.
When will additional stretch goals be implemented?
Stretch goals such as the ability to select gender are being worked on. We also will be implementing a certain feature you may have noticed is missing from System Shock. Oink oink.
That’s all for now!
Thank you
- Team Nightdive Studios
In true codexian fashion, I spent way too many hours to finish a game I hate.
Warren Spector says his major contribution to System Shock was to stop 'it many times from getting killed'
"I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that System Shock introduced the idea of environmental storytelling to the world."
PC Gamer's all-singing all-dancing all-action 30th anniversary issue is on-sale today, and includes a slew of major interviews with the creatives that have shaped our industry and some of the most important games in history. PCG's editor Robert Jones sat down with Warren Spector and Paul Neurath, key members of the original System Shock team, which is generally considered the first game you could call an immersive sim, with its influence is still prevalent in the contemporary industry across the likes of Arkane's various titles and 2K's Bioshock series.
The origins of the game go back to its lead programmer Doug Church who, while Warren Spector was polishing up a proposal for something called Alien Commander, shared how bored he was with the then-industry's over-reliance on genre tropes.
"Doug Church was hanging out in my office one day, and we were both talking about how sick we were of fantasy games, and dungeons, and rescuing princesses, and heroes that were built like the Mighty Thor," says Spector. "He and Paul [Neurath] were working—I didn’t know—on another similar project. They were sick of that as well, as I understand it. Doug came to me with an idea that ultimately became System Shock.
"I just sort of sat there with my pitiful, little, two-page Alien Commander proposal, with art I had done, which you never want to see. I listened to what he had to say, and went, 'Yeah, that’s better'. And so System Shock was born. I produced it. We could talk more about my specific role, but I represented it at Origin, and kept it many times from getting killed. I think that was my major contribution to the game."
The studio that would become Looking Glass was at this time called Blue Sky, and Paul Neurath says the studio's goal was always "to create this kind of new genre of immersive games, where we try to pull the player as much as we could into feeling like they really were in that world, and that they really were themselves making the decisions. We tried to do this genre mashup. It also had this mix of roleplaying and combat and real-time gameplay–but, in this game, all in the first-person perspective to create that deep immersion."
This included the idea of 3D itself, which in the industry's early forays tended to mean 3D visuals but a locked perspective on a single plane (as with something like Doom). System Shock was conceived as having a truly 3D environment and traversal mechanics that would work within such a setting.
"The kind of 6D version of 3D was something new," says Spector. "I mean, you could turn your head in a direction that you weren’t actually going. You could look around corners. You could crouch. You could lean. You could do all sorts of things that no one had been able to do. We could create sloped surfaces. We could create enormous chasms that, you know, you could look down, and see hundreds and hundreds of feet below you, which was kind of scary."
This was seriously ambitious stuff and Spector, who had the ultimate responsibility for producing a shippable game, was alternately angry and delighted by how hard the team pushed what they could do: recalling one occasion where they added a moving starfield right before beta.
"That doesn’t sound like much, but you don’t add features right before you go beta," says Spector. "It just isn’t done. I was furious. I mean, I was really angry. I went back to my office, and did my little happy dance, because that was how committed the team was to making something of the highest possible quality."
Spector adds that the way the game used physics was also new, with everything from recoil to head movement to in-game objects depending on physics systems that were "very sophisticated for its time, and I think it’s still relevant today – and, frankly, underused. Because if I ever see boxes stacked again, I’ll scream."
Another overlooked element, according to Spector, is that "I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that System Shock introduced the idea of environmental storytelling to the world. The idea of killing everybody, and telling the story through video logs and emails, and then having the players piece the story together, and then see elements of the story in the world [...] That is still relevant today. That’s kind of the key to the immersive sim genre. It’s not about telling players how to solve problems."
The full interview contains much more chat about System Shock and its remake, but that's far from the only classic this issue of PCG covers, with exclusive access to Nightdive's upcoming remaster of Star Wars: Dark Forces. There's also a special group test looking back at the best graphics cards of the last 30 years, an exclusive interview directly with CD Projekt Red on Cyberpunk 2077's 2.0 patch, a comprehensive guide to the best Starfield mods available, a special time-traveling dispatch from The Spy, and much more besides.
Nightdive thought it was 'going to get grilled' about the lack of hand-holding in System Shock remake, but players loved it
"People described it as an atrophied part of their brain starting to wake up again."
PC Gamer's 30th anniversary issue is on-sale today, and includes a slew of major interviews with some of the creatives that have shaped our industry and some of its most important games in history. One of those is System Shock, and Warren Spector told PCG's editor Robert Jones his major contribution was to stop "it many times from getting killed." The same roundtable also included Larry Kuperman and Stephen Kick of Nightdive Studios, which developed the recent (excellent) remake, who had an interesting observation to make about that game's reception.
Part of its nature as an immersive game was that System Shock didn't hold players' hands: it gave them objectives, sure, but then it's up to you to work out where you need to go and what to do. It avoids things like the breadcrumb trails so pervasive in almost every major title now, something that Nightdive found resonated with the contemporary audience in its remake.
"One of the big surprises that we found after releasing the game was that because we stuck so closely to the original mechanics, and just the formula, we found a lot of people praising us for not holding their hands; for not including waypoints and a mission point and objective markers and stuff like that," says Stephen Kick.
"The surprise was: we originally thought that we were going to get grilled on that pretty hard, because it’s become such a standard and staple in games these days. The most surprising thing for us was that people described it as an atrophied part of their brain starting to wake up again as a result of playing System Shock, because it actually trusted them, and it respected them. And it made them think again, while playing the game. As much as I would like to take credit for that–you know, it’s a direct translation of what’s in the original."
"To Stephen’s point, one reason we didn’t have waypoints in System Shock is because, often, you didn’t have a clear path," says Paul Neurath, who worked on the original. "There were different ways you could go through. Creating a waypoint would artificially tell a player, "No, no, no. We want you to take this particular path," where that wasn’t the best path or the path that would matter to a player, depending on their play style.
"So I think that’s an interesting example where we did something that wasn’t particularly standard, and today it certainly is pretty non-standard. It’s not the way a lot of games continue today to do it. And I don’t know if you look at that as a good thing or a bad thing. But I’m proud that the team took that approach, even if that’s not the standard way to do it these days."
The full interview contains much more chat about System Shock and its remake, but that's far from the only classic this issue of PCG covers, with exclusive access to Nightdive's upcoming remaster of Star Wars: Dark Forces.
What, you don't agree that games nowadays are dumbed down?'...became a standard and staple in games these days...'
Can they stoop even lower in what they say?
Yes, I agree.What, you don't agree that games nowadays are dumbed down?'...became a standard and staple in games these days...'
Can they stoop even lower in what they say?
I was curious if the remake would appeal to people who weren't fans of the original. When I was playing it I kept thinking how well it would work if the game had a proper stealth system, e.g. robot reinforcements were overwhelming and combat was generally more risky. But that would essentially be a whole different game from the original.I didn't play it
Hard to say, depends what you didn't like about the OG. From what you say it seems it's not for you. But you never know, it has many other virtues.I was curious if the remake would appeal to people who weren't fans of the original.I didn't play it
Honestly, I wanted to like the remake as System Shock 2 is one of my most loved games of all times and I had high hopes that a polished version of the first game would be just as great. I knew that SS1 had fewer RPG elements but I was still surprised how different the two games are. In that sense, I'm biased as I wanted something like System Shock 2. It would be interesting to test how someone without any immersive sim experience views the game.I'm a huge fan of the original so I enjoyed the remake. But I'm biased, That's why I'm curious what opinion fresh players have. Kind of like watching a movie without reading the book it's based on. Totally different experience. I want to know if this game works for people without nostalgia goggles.
Yet, It's almost too faithful, it's like they were afraid of really changing anything or introducing any new mechanics it's at all. Tech has advanced a lot since the 90s, I'm sure there are all sorts of ways to add to the gameplay. Im sims tend to be known specifically for stealth so I'm surprised they didn't implement it here.
I'd say the opposite is true. If I read that someone who liked the original likes the remake as well, it means the remake must be really good.I'm a huge fan of the original so I enjoyed the remake. But I'm biased, That's why I'm curious what opinion fresh players have. Kind of like watching a movie without reading the book it's based on. Totally different experience. I want to know if this game works for people without nostalgia goggles.
Yet, It's almost too faithful, it's like they were afraid of really changing anything or introducing any new mechanics it's at all. Tech has advanced a lot since the 90s, I'm sure there are all sorts of ways to add to the gameplay. Im sims tend to be known specifically for stealth so I'm surprised they didn't implement it here.
Yet, It's almost too faithful, it's like they were afraid of really changing anything or introducing any new mechanics it's at all. Tech has advanced a lot since the 90s, I'm sure there are all sorts of ways to add to the gameplay. Im sims tend to be known specifically for stealth so I'm surprised they didn't implement it here.