Developer Nightdive Studios has confirmed work is still underway on its long-delayed remake of System Shock, saying it “can assure” players that the game “is on its way”.
In an update on Kickstarter – the first since July 2021, when a teaser trailer for the game was revealed – Nightdive Studios said it had continued to “work towards launching the game we’ve all been patiently waiting for”, and acknowledged “some confusion over dates”, which it said “is an unfortunate reality of making games”.
It also teased “some big news to share in the future that will help make sense of what’s been going on”, and thanked players and backers for their patience.
Diving into the actual material update, the studio said it is “working on the final polish for the enemies, weapons, levels, and cinematics”. It also provided a selection of screenshots, including of the Grove Dome which it describes as “one of the largest assets in the game”, and an Avian Mutant, an enemy type that was almost cut from the game until Nightdive “decided it was important to have an enemy that introduced verticality to the combat, specifically in the Grove levels”.
An update to the System Shock remake demo is also planned, which will “include full dismemberment across all enemies along with updated AI, new behaviours, new animations and hit reactions, updated weapon FX as well as numerous bug fixes and performance optimizations.”
Nightdive’s Kickstarter campaign to create a ground-up remake of the original 1994 System Shock launched on June 28 2016, originally targeting $900,000 (£677k) in crowdfunding and eventually attracting $1,350,700 (£1.02m) from backers. At the time, the game had an estimated delivery date of December 2017.
The latest update has not been warmly received, with the long delays being cited by backers in the comments. One says “you are treating people that trusted you four years ago when they backed this project like second grade citizens”, while another added “Thanks for letting us know we are the least considered fraction of your client base”.
