A fresh look at Nightdive's reboot

Nightdive Studios has given System Shock fans a progress update on its "faithful reboot" of the influential 1994 game from Looking Glass. The crowdfunded project is still in pre-production, with the team currently focused on creating a vertical slice -- or, "a thin deep slice of the game."

More specifically, Nightdive is "finishing building out the Medical Deck including labs, vents, and patient rooms, adding in several new enemies including the Cyborg Drone and Cyborg Commander, new weapons, turrets, hacking puzzles, and so on. This milestone also lets us finalize the combat for multiple weapon types and throwable items. By the time this milestone is complete, we should have a good hour of gameplay that is very indicative of the final game." Then it'll enter production.

The team also fielded some commonly-asked questions on Kickstarter, noting that the older Unity engine demo for System Shock was taken down "since it does not reflect the current state of the project," there aren't plans to issue a new "build of the game until the backer Beta begins," and support for Nintendo Switch and Xbox One X are "not off the table." Finally, mods are an ongoing stretch goal.

This video covers Nightdive's development pipeline and checks in on level design and R&D. "We're looking to bring you a Citadel Station that's equal parts familiar and fresh," says lead level designer James Henley. If you stick to the end, you'll see some mutant dismemberment.

Hard to believe we're getting this *and* System Shock 3.

November Update [Kickstarter]