Oh! Well then. I guess System Shock 3 is actually happening. Cool, cool. Seems it’ll be coming from a team including folks who worked on the original too: Looking Glass co-founder Paul Neurath’s new mob OtherSide Entertainment. You know, them lot currently working on Ultima Underworld sequel Underworld Ascendant. Yep, no biggie. STAY CALM, ALICE. MAINTAIN STEELY EXTERIOR.

Otherside have a teaser page saying “SYSTEM SHOCK 3” all casual like, which seems to have been uncovered earlier than planned given that the timer they did actually announce is still counting down another five days. So yeah, sure, System Shock 3.

Publishers Night Dive Studios announced only last month that they’d picked up the rights to Looking Glass’s beloved FPS-RPG series and had a remake of the first game on the go (it’s quite pretty) to follow up on their re-release. They mentioned vague plans for a System Shock 3, but I hadn’t expected to hear anything so soon.

“What’s this System Shock thing?” you might ask. “Is to do with BioShock or something?” Or something: Irrational Games had worked with Looking Glass on System Shock 2, then ran with some of its ideas in BioShock. System Shock’s a sci-fi horror FPS-RPG series about weak meat and an AI with dreams of godhood. Here, check out what we said about SS2 in its placings on our best horror and best RPG lists, as well as Kieron’s love letter to that sassy AI, SHODAN.

I’ll eat an entire beaker of worms if Night Dive and OtherSide don’t put System Shock 3 on Kickstarter. Night Dive are not a huge publisher and OtherSide are not a massive studio, and I doubt either has the cash lying around to fund a full-on sequel. I’d also be surprised if this upcoming announcement says much more than “Yep, we’ll make it, and we’ll crowdfund it later.” I’d probably expect to hear more concrete details as Underworld Ascendant draws closer to release. Maybe a few teases that they’ve lured some System Shock veterans out of hiding to work on it. I’m speculating, obvs.

The recent rash of veteran developers crowdfunding returns to their old genres and series has largely produced so-so games, but I’m certainly curious and a mite excited to see what happens with System Shock.