♪ Hello, darkness, my old friend… ♪
While the market is constantly being oversaturated with video games, few actually manage to imprint themselves onto the collective public’s minds. Whether it was because of the far more limited market back then or because studios cared more about the experience than about making money, most memorable games come from a time long passed.
One of the landmarks of 3D gaming and sometimes considered the first real first person shooter, System Shock is being remastered and we have gameplay footage. The game is still in pre-alpha, meaning that it doesn’t even have completable missions yet, but it does look really good so far.
While Night Dive, the company that purchased the rights to the original franchise announced a while back that a remastered version of the first game was in the making, it wasn’t until Monday that a two minute gameplay video was uploaded to YouTube for fans of the original title to enjoy.
In the video’s description, Night Dive took a little time to address the old fans of the title and to talk for a bit about the ambitious project.
After 20 years, we are remastering and re-imagining the original System Shock. We will keep the new game true to the classic experience, keeping all the things you loved, while updating the user interface and graphics to use a modern day engine (Unity).
Still, it will be quite a while before the game is even close to being out. Despite all the promising reveals the company’s founder, Stephen Kick, has made (including that Robert Waters, System Shock’s original concept artist is reimagining the game for HD), the inevitable crowdfunding campaign hasn’t even started yet.
Talking about getting the game’s original concept artist behind the project, Kick had this to say:
Seeing the difference between his artistic abilities back then compared to now, and his ability to reinterpret those ideas, it’s just been really exciting for us.
Even though initially we were promised both a PC and an Xbox One release, the initial crowdfunding campaign will only involve the PC version, using the Unity engine. Despite all the delays, however, the 1994 cult classic is very likely to see the light of day in its remastered form this year.
But this isn’t the only good piece of news related to System Shock, as earlier this year we found out that the game’s original creator will be involved in developing a third installment in the series, and that he can’t wait to see what Shodan is up to.
You can watch the System Shock Remastered footage below, if you’re so inclined.
Image source: YouTube
