System Shock Remastered Edition Preview

Larry Kuperman, the director of business development over at Nightdive Studios, participated in this year’s GDC where he showed off some fresh gameplay footage from his team’s upcoming System Shock remake. And as a result, we can now check out this Windows Central preview that talks about some of the remake’s new features and Nightdive’s fondness for remastering old games.

A quick excerpt:

The System Shock remake is now a full-blown FPS, with what I assume is a more streamlined control scheme to go along with it. You no longer have to drag the screen with your mouse or keep hitting A or D to turn around, and you can pick up objects without having to click and drag with your mouse. You do have to click on objects to pick them up, but it’s a simple right-click on your mouse, and then you can organize your attached inventory later. You can also assign items to quick slots.

The game also features more robust animation for picking up weapons, for example, or throwing grenades. This is all fairly typical by modern shooter standards, but to see it implemented here shows Nightdive understood a lot needed to be changed to account for nearly 30 years of game development.

What struck me the most, however, was the way it looked. The original System Shock has a familiar level design and user interface, but it’s also quite colorful. There are a lot of bright blues, greens, and reds, which contrast nicely with the dark colors used for the design of the Citadel Station. It’s quite striking, and makes for a great way to differentiate sections across levels. The remake keeps a lot of the same palette and integrated a bunch of the very crowded UI into the environment. It’s still a game where you play as a hacker with a gun, but it’s a lot cleaner, there’s way less mess blocking your line of sight, and it’s just pretty to look at.