System Shock Reboot On Hold After Nightdive Goes On ‘Hiatus’

It’s painful, but not altogether surprising at the same time, as another Kickstarter funded game goes on indefinite hold. Back in July 2016, Nightdive Studios put together a plan to remaster the venerable System Shock for a new audience. It took to Kickstarter and secured $1.3 million from over 21,000 backers – needless to say, there was a lot of interest.

System Shock holds a lot of fond memories for the older gamers among us, as it was a delightful blend of FPS and RPG in a very cyberpunk horror setting, and eventually gave rise to the Bioshock series. While games such as Doom have stayed the test of time, System Shock did not age well, and requires a great deal of effort to get into (convoluted controls, a very 90s style user interface, and appalling graphics) – hence the excitement around a remaster.

Interest in System Shock has grown over the years, thanks in part to Bioshock, the spiritual successor. What really got the ball rolling though, was when System Shock 2 was finally made available for purchase again in the modern age, thanks in part to Nightdive finally securing the rights and releasing a timed exclusive on GOG.com, back in 2013. Since then, enhanced editions of the System Shock games have been released and even work started on System Shock 3, developed by Otherside Entertainment.

Despite the enhanced editions, the original needed a bit more TLC for a modern audience, hence the work on a remaster. Nightdive’s original plan was a remaster, and not a remake – taking the existing game and updating the graphics and interface, not to add new content or change the story. After 18 months of Kickstarter updates, the game was still in ‘pre-production’, and it wasn’t until a Polygon article was published that news finally broke that the team had gone on a ‘hiatus’. This has led to a lot of unanswered questions about the future of the project.

Stephen Kick from Nightdive Studios wanted to make it clear in his Kickstarter update that it is just a break, and not an end to the project, although anyone familiar with Kickstarter projects may be somewhat dismissive of such a statement. The more important question though, is why did this happen in the first place?

The Polygon article and Kickstarter’s statements puts the blame on ‘mission creep’, effectively turning the remaster into a remake, which was not the point of the project in the first place. In an effort to secure more funding, publishers were contacted but each wanted to change the game as well to make it more appealing to a modern audience, and even the developers wanted to implement their own ideas.

There is still the possibility we’ll see a full release 18-24 months from now, according to Larry Kuperman, director of business development at Nightdive Studios, but the cynic in me could read that as 2-10 years from now, based on past ‘on-hold’ statements from Kickstarter projects. However, Nightdive Studios exists because of System Shock, so it does seem unlikely that the project is canned for good. One can only hope that they stick to the mission briefing this time and avoid the temptations of improving something to death.