Warren Spector Interview – System Shock 3 and Immersive Sim Struggles

During the recent Reboot Develop conference, Warren Spector, a veteran video game developer who you may know for his work on such games like Ultima Underworld, System Shock, and Deus Ex, talked to GamesIndustry.biz about the immersive sim sub-genre of RPGs that seems to be struggling at the moment, and also shared a few details about System Shock 3, his current project. He also mentioned that despite its less than stellar reception, OtherSide’s recently released Underworld Ascendant has done well enough to fund the development of System Shock 3.

A few sample paragraphs:

The real challenge with System Shock 3 is living up to the legacy of its forebears. It’s been 20 years since System Shock 2, 25 since the original, and striking the balance between staying true to the old games but adopting the advancements of newer ones is “terrifying,” according to Spector.

“We’re not even competing with System Shock and System Shock 2; we’re competing with people’s memories of them. And their memories are not of terrible-looking 2D animation, blocky graphics, simple levels.

He continued: “But it’s interesting and strange to have the opportunity to go back and give Shodan some sensible motivation. In the earlier games it was like, ‘Why did I do it? Because I’m mad of course.’ It’s a great character; people love Shodan and she’s a terrific villain, but that’s not the most sophisticated motivation you can come up with. So the opportunity to explain who she is, let her become something is kinda cool.

We’re also going to bring back Citadel Station in some form — was it entirely destroyed? If you go back to the original game, you can find the answer. There were some survivors of those early games, so being able to tell people what happened to those characters is fun.

“But the thing we always have to remember is that it’s a balancing act. We have to make sure we reach beyond the core fans. The original System Shock and System Shock 2 were re-released in their original form with no changes about three years ago and sold over a million copies — so we know there’s an audience out there, but we need to reach beyond that. We’re finding the balance between pleasing the existing fans and giving new fans something to grab onto without knowing all the lore.”