KickStarter System Shock 1 Remake by Nightdive Studios

[Jenkem]

yeah but it hasn't been 48 hours yet since the conference

the demos ran up until steam store update time 4 hours ago

 

[mindx2]

I don't know... I think I prefer the Unity "look" with it's blue hues than the dark & gritty Unreal demo. The lighting in the Unity demo reminded me more of the original than this new one.

 

[Venser]

I didn't have good enough PC to run the Unity demo when it came out and I forgot to go back to it later. Yesterday I played both demos back to back along with the original game's hospital level. I get what they were going for with the retro pixelated textures but I gotta say I prefer the look of the old Unity demo. The new demo is terribly optimized, it gradually drops FPS and it crashed on me 3 times before I finished it. It's way too dark, AI is horrible, the melee combat feels terrible and using the energy weapon felt so much more satisfying in the old demo. The screen malfunction effect when you get hit looked cooler in Unity as well. I like the UI design but the inventory has to be improved. You can't load weapons by dragging ammo onto it and moving items to quick selection feels clunky for no reason. Why does an empty soda can stay in your inventory after you drink it? That's just annoying. All the boosters and medpacks look the same but that's all just pre-alpha stuff. Another confusing thing is there's no visual difference between the items you can pick up and random stuff lying around on shelves. Sounds like I'm totally shitting on the game but once I got into it, running around the Citadel station and mapping it felt like proper System Shock and I believe it can be a decent game once they polish it. I'm just worried that modern gamers won't have the patience to explore the maze-like level design.


I took a bunch of scrreenshots for comparison while I played through the demos so check the Tweet replies for more:

 

[Lemming42]

Thanks for the screenshot comparisons, I never played the old Unity demo so a lot of those visuals are new to me.

Other than a few select pieces of texture work in the Unreal demo, the Unity demo wins hands-down. I still can't figure out what the fuck they're thinking with the lighting. It's too dark even in the Unity one but at least you can see across a small room unlike in the Unreal demo.

It's sad that they're so intent on stripping a lot of colour out of the game. I guess they wanted to make Citadel look a little more believably realistic, but as long as they're keeping the level design identical (which I think they should), it's necessarily going to feel like an abstract representation of a real place anyway - just like it did in System Shock, except now you can't see shit and everything looks boring.

This is far from a AAA modern re-imagining of System Shock though... If you want that I highly recommend Alien Isolation.

That's almost the antithesis of System Shock! I really liked Alien Isolation but System Shock is a game about being the world's jankiest cyborg and using a constantly-shifting arsenal of ridiculous weapons (lightsaber! sorry, Laser Rapier) to battle hundreds of relentless fucked up cyborg zombies that a crazy AI is sending to kill you while the station falls apart around you and everything explodes. All that plus a clock at the top of the screen constantly reminding you that you're going to die in less than 7 hours if you can't fight your way off the station by then.

 

[Nano]

EDIT: according to pripyat_beat on Reddit:

The Unity demo we created was much smaller in scope so we had time to polish many of the secondary features for weapons and animations as well as lighting and optimization. Many of those are missing from the Unreal demo as we've focused on completing all the levels, basic mechanics and puzzles first. We were given the opportunity to participate in the VGA/Steam promotion so we used a number of work in progress elements to make it playable. Thanks for taking the time to put this together and share your feedback, the final version will include many of the things you've mentioned missing from the Unity demo.

Why the fuck would they release a new demo of the same areas as the 2016 demo when they know it's worse? What kind of shit marketing is that?

 

[passerby]

As explained, they took an opportunity to show off the game on a promotional event and released what they had in their hands at the time.

Maybe Tim Sweeney will notice them ?

 

[Bad Sector]

Perhaps they didn't notice or didn't thought the differences were that big to warrant notice (i mean, outside of the lighting - which is the easiest to fix - most of them are smaller details). So it was actually a good idea to release a free demo first, see reactions and then adjust their course before starting to sell the thing (backers notwithstanding but that money is long gone).

At least from my perspective as a potential buyer and someone who liked the Unity demo, i only see the release of this one as a good thing. Worst case: they don't listen to or understand the feedback and make something that i wont want to buy. Best case: they do and they make something i'd like to buy. Either way nothing is lost.

 

[Nyast]

They've already explained that they've focused on remaking all the levels and gameplay and haven't worked on polishing the levels ( and probably, adjusting the lighting ) yet. The performance issues / stuttering has already been largely fixed ( there was a hotfix the second day ). It pains me to see so many people expecting a finished game when it's still a huge alpha WIP.

 

[Nano]

They've already explained that they've focused on remaking all the levels and gameplay and haven't worked on polishing the levels ( and probably, adjusting the lighting ) yet. The performance issues / stuttering has already been largely fixed ( there was a hotfix the second day ). It pains me to see so many people expecting a finished game when it's still a huge alpha WIP.

Dude, can you really blame people? This game has been in development hell for a long time, and what people are seeing is this game somehow getting worse than it was years ago. The fact that this was Kickstarted is only compounding the disappointment.

 

[Nyast]

The Unity demo was a marketing demo. They spent a lot of time on making it look as good as possible and polishing it, which is why -doh- it looks better than this Steam demo. They've explained that they've been focusing on content and getting all the gameplay / levels ready before polishing the game. Yet the Steam forums are a never-ending list of "performance sucks" ( this was fixed the next day in a hotfix by the way ), "it's too dark" and "the textures suck" ( not understanding they've been going for a retro style ages ago ). I would agree with the complaints if that was the released game, but it isn't and nobody seems to understand that.

 

[unfairlight]

"it's too dark"

it is too dark, stop sucking their dick.

 

[Lemming42]

The lighting complaints at least are valid, surely. That's a stylistic choice, not a symptom of being pre-alpha. And it's ludicrous, you literally can't see across a small storage room.

All comments about the tone and style of the game being such a significant departure from SS1 hold weight too. Even acknowledging the stage of development the game is currently in, we can get a clear idea of what they're going for from this.

 

[unfairlight]

it's apparently an "immersive sim" but it sure does fucking ruin my immurshun when 300 years into the future torches have been outlawed

 

[Nyast]

it's apparently an "immersive sim" but it sure does fucking ruin my immurshun when 300 years into the future torches have been outlawed

It's a remake of System Shock. Same levels, same gameplay. Torch lights are available in the maintenance level later on.

"it's too dark"

it is too dark, stop sucking their dick.

Of course it's too dark ! They haven't polished the levels and the lighting yet ! That's exactly what I was talking about: people compalining about stuff that ISN'T EVEN FINISHED and treating this demo as released game. Now if it's still that dark when the game releases, complain as much as you want. But while it's a work-in-progress, a year or two away from the release, and they've admitted they haven't worked on the visuals, it's ridiculous.

 

[Lemming42]

The Unity demo and many concept/promotional pictures were dark as fuck as well. I'm pretty certain the godawful lighting is an intentional stylistic choice, unless they've said otherwise.

Wonder how floor three is going to ultimately look if the rest of the game is already basically pitch black.

I just realised, the lighting is made way worse by the thick fog that's inexplicably on every single level in the screenshots they've released. Where there are lights, they illuminate the fog which means you can't see shit and everything looks blurred.

Here's the worst example, this is meant to be the central corridor on floor 2:

 

[unfairlight]

Of course it's too dark ! They haven't polished the levels and the lighting yet !

They haven't polished the levels or lighting yet in their vertical slice demo that is supposed to represent the best of the game in the very first level
lol ok

 

[Nyast]

They've said they're focusing on recreating the levels and gameplay first.

I don't think it's too outragous to think they simply took what they had at the time and made it available as the temp Steam demo.

In terms of game development, it's logical that the polishing, optimization and tuning comes at the end of the project, not in the middle of it as they're still building the game.

 

[Matticus]

It's not like optimization is even being completely saved for last. All the features put into the game are optimized as they go in. The biggest hit to performance turned out to be Wwise's (audio engine) ridiculous occlusion tests that A.) Don't cull audio components by attenuation distance B.) Do 25 raycasts per tick which amounted to ~2000!!! raycasts per frame for the entire level. It's somewhat difficult to spot this because it's done asynchronously so isn't shown in the AkComponent profile data. This feature is on by default and is not tunable, so has since been deleted from the Wwise integration code.

 

[Infinitron]

Demo is available to Kickstarter backers until launch with performance improvement: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598858095/system-shock/posts/2715738

December Update V2

Hello backers! It’s Stephen from Nightdive with a very special Holiday update!

We understand that many backers did not have an opportunity to take part in the 48 hour VGA/Steam demo and we wanted to remedy that as soon as possible, so…

Check your emails for your System Shock Demo Steam key!

We’ve spent the last week working on the demo and we’ve dramatically improved performance so even if you did play the demo you’ll want to hop in and try again!

Just some notes:

• There is no time limit, you will have access to this demo until launch
• This is still in an alpha state, there are bugs, missing features, etc.
• The demo will be periodically updated with new features and fixes until the Medical level is 100% complete, so check back often
• You are free to stream, record, and share your playthrough in any way you want
• We don’t plan on releasing this demo on GOG or any other platform
• Please post your feedback in the “pre-alpha-demo” channel in the SYSTEM SHOCK REMAKE section on our official Discord

Also, the Steam Winter Sale is in full swing, so if there are any other Nightdive titles on your wishlist now is the time to pick them up!

Nightdive Studios Steam Publisher Page

Be sure to follow us on:

Nightdive Twitter

System Shock Twitter

Nightdive Facebook

Nightdive Discord

Nightdive Instagram

See you next time!

 

[Nano]

Release the demo on GOG you cunt. He did it last time, why not now?

 

[LESS T_T]

Probably because pushing constant updates on GOG is cumbersome.

 

[MuscleSpark]

The game runs way smoother now. Played it all the way through without significant drops.
Also they seem to have changed a couple of minor things.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598858095/system-shock/posts/2732523

January Update

Happy New Year Hackers!

Last month we unveiled a demo on Steam for backers and for those who haven't been able to play, we streamed it earlier this week:

Disclaimer: The demo was sent out through Backerkit to Steam backers, if you believe that you were supposed to receive it and have not, contact the Community Manager on Discord:

Join the Discord Community Here

Character Art
In September we had an update showing the early stages of the Protoborgs, now you can see glimpses of them in this current state in the demo!

Spoiler

Robb Water's Concept Art
As we do every month, here is some concept art for some upcoming things you will see in the engine.

What would you be interested in seeing next month? More characters? New environment? Let us know!!


Be sure to follow us on:

Nightdive Twitter

System Shock Twitter

Nightdive Facebook

Nightdive Discord

Nightdive Instagram

See you next time!

 

[DJOGamer PT]

They could have instead made a report on what they learned from the demo's feedback, and how they've been/will apply those lessons...

 

[Venser]

The levels are a lot brighter now compared to the demo. Definitely an improvement.