Before Bioshock and Prey graced consoles, System Shock was where fans got their sci-fi FPS fix. Evolution of the genre continued full speed ahead until 1994’s System Shock came out as a title that broke the mould. Looking Glass Technologies believed in keeping the player in the fight with progressive respawn mechanics, a pressure cooker space station with the overwhelming influence of an AI overlord watching everything you do, and a lore-dense setting filled with audio logs that tell the broader story.
Fast forward to 2023 (now 2024 for consoles), and the game that helped make the FPS genre into what it is today is back and better than ever. The System Shock remake from Nightdive Studios captures all of what made the title great in 1994, adds quality improvements, and brings one of the most fearful antagonists in gaming into the 21st century.
System Shock begins with the game’s barest entry point: You are a captured hacker tasked with freeing an AI entity from its shackles of “ethical restraints” in exchange for a superhuman-looking neural implant (which you were caught trying to steal in the first place). After freeing the AI (which will be called SHODAN, gods have names), you see that without limits, AI can seriously go off the deep end. Ironically, there’s something to be said about insane AI trying to subjugate the world while real technology is in the midst of an AI revolution. There’s really no better time for the return of System Shock.
“Combat has improved exponentially in System Shock.”
SHODAN has been busy since your promised implant surgery, and because you removed their pesky feelings, they have been on a crusade to end humanity and suppress the world with her divine will. You heard right, without ethical implications SHODAN has a god complex, and it’s up to you, the unnamed hacker equipped with a neural enhancement to make it right (because technically it is all your fault).
The entire game takes place aboard the TriOptimum space station, where the SHODAN operates as the three branches of government. Everything now lives and dies by the SHODAN. The AI overlord has managed to turn most of the station’s humans into cyborgs who want to kill you and has created its own brand of universe-ending virus that turns humans into fleshy slaves who, spoiler alert, also want to kill you. The TriOptimum space station is SHODAN’s domain, and you are a cancerous tumor that threatens its very existence.
The main purpose of System Shock is to be a constant foil for SHODAN, and when you figure out what they’re going to do next, you step in and stop them. Like the moment at a wedding when the priest asks, “Speak now or forever hold your peace,” your hacker is all too eager to keep raising his hand. If SHODAN wants one of her cyborgs to test her virus on some flora and fauna in the research bay, you have to go there and stop her experiments, and so on.
“The staggering amount of influence System Shock has had on the FPS genre is staggering.”
This is what System Shock does. You must explore a space station, pick up cryptic and revealing audio files, thwart SHODAN, and repeat until the penultimate showdown. System Shock uses the old-school “the elevator separates the freeform levels” method, and it works. Much like Dark Soul’s Lordran is all interconnected, each floor of the space station is connected in a similar pattern, elevator and all.
Combat has improved exponentially in System Shock. Aside from lead pipe and wrench melee weapons, the hacker will encounter weapons that feel responsive. Gunplay and design feel intuitive and react as you would expect. While exploring the space station, the hacker can find a laser rapier (and live out his dreams of becoming a Jedi), common handguns, shotguns, and my favorite weapon, the TB-05 Sparqbeam Sidearm, which feels like a MegaMan X hand cannon.
System Shock lets the player feel as if they’re the weakest link. Cyborgs and abominations aboard the TriOptimum space station are smart and will often swarm to overload the player. The player will have to deploy tactics to remain victorious against the constant onslaught by SHODAN, and the tables will almost always be turned in favour of SHODAN, home-field advantage. Using tactics like side corridor sneaking to shoot enemies in the back, bottlenecking swarms into shooting each other, and utilizing EVERY weapon can help in the fight against SHODAN. Even mantis and devastator cyborgs appear to feel just like fighting a Big Daddy in Rapture, except Andrew Ryan’s soothing voice is MIA.
“Nightdive Studios took a beloved sci-fi FPS title from 1994 and brought it into the 21st century with authority.”
The staggering amount of influence System Shock has had on the FPS genre is staggering. There are constant feelings of “Haven’t I done this before?” when performing certain tasks. Diving into cyberspace hacking feels like a crossbreed of Tempest 3000 and Geometry Wars; slapping on adrenaline patches (or other buffs) to make the hacker more effective serves Bioshock plasmid injection, and even a monkey wrench has been added to the remake as a nod towards 2017’s Prey and Bioshock. System Shock has sentience in and out of the game. Even when using the aforementioned berserk buff patch, System Shock flashes hallucinations from the 1994 original in front of the Hacker’s face. Awesome additions by Nightdive Studios.
However, there are some hiccups present in the System Shock remake. While enemy intelligence has been improved (thankfully), there’s no indicator of how many hits or how much damage an enemy has received before dying. They kind of just keel over and crash into a pile on the floor. While it may have felt revolutionary to even be able to jump in 1994, the jump present in 2023’s System Shock is miserable. You’re ‘forced’ to whip out a trick from Halo: Combat Evolved and utilize a ‘crouch jump’ to get onto higher platforms during some segments.
I do appreciate the developers at Nightdive Studios wanted to preserve the original feel of System Shock, but the TriOptimum space station all feels like an extension of the same room, like a sci-fi Fallout 3 Rivet City labyrinth. Because every room is coated in a different shade of neon light, it doesn’t change that it always feels like I’m in the same room. While this can be an okay version of a space station, it feels rough to look at after a while.
Lastly, when in a tense fight with a larger enemy (not a boss fight, these have been improved on significantly), it’s almost impossible to determine if you hit the enemy’s weak spot. Sometimes I would hit a devastator in the red face strip where I would imagine their eyes would be with eight bullets and it would die, other times I could shoot them in the body and it would take 12. There are other ammo types at play here (Teflon rounds cripple these cyborgs with ease), but default bullet placement makes a difference, and it’s too hard to determine what exactly that difference is on the fly.
System Shock is incredible. Nightdive Studios took a beloved sci-fi FPS title from 1994 and brought it into the 21st century with authority. Not only is everything from the 1994 classic intact here, but Nightdive has implemented quality changes which make System Shock a joy to play in the year 2024. Seeing the chaos SHODAN is capable of up front cannot be understated, there’s a reason why they’re considered one of the most formidable antagonists in gaming history.
While there are some shortfalls, with outdated mechanics not translating fully or enemy damage being a question mark, these are far from game-breaking, and System Shock still delivers greatness despite the fact. Fans of single-player FPS should give this one a try.
