The upcoming remake of System Shock, Kickstarted two years ago for over $1.3 million, is now on “hiatus” thanks to problems with development, the company behind it said today.




Nightdive Studios, an independent game developer and publisher best known for re-releasing old games on modern platforms, said in a Kickstarter update this afternoon that the team behind this remake plans to “reassess” development before it returns to the project. CEO Stephen Kick said that they had overscoped, “envisioning doing more, but straying from the core concepts of the original title.” There’s no timeline for when we’ll see the planned overhaul to the classic 1994 first-person action game, but it’s looking grim for Kickstarter backers.



“As our concept grew and as our team changed, so did the scope of what we were doing and with that the budget for the game,” Kick said. “As the budget grew, we began a long series of conversations with potential publishing partners. The more that we worked on the game, the more that we wanted to do, and the further we got from the original concepts that made System Shock so great.”




Nightdive Studios, which has also licensed out System Shock 3 to the Massachusetts-based game studio OtherSide Entertainment, had raised $1,350,700 from 21,625 backers to remake the first System Shock in June 2016. The studio released a playable demo alongside the Kickstarter.

UPDATE (9:25pm): We’ve clarified some language to make it clear that System Shock 3 is licensed from Nightdive, not developed in conjunction with the publisher.