System Shock Remastered Demo Available June 28th

J3RK said:
Exactly. I backed this because I wanted an updated version of the original. System Shock 3 will be the new experience. Prey is LIKE System Shock, so there's another non-SS1 option. I still play the original, and the Enhanced Edition is great, but I also really liked where they were headed with the initial demo even in the old Unity engine. It looked like a nice new way to play the same game, which is precisely what I was looking for.

I still really liked some of the art they were showing though, and some of the re-imaginings of Citidel, but the more I listened to them talk about it, the more it sounded like they didn't think the source material was good enough anymore, which was a big mistake. The source material is one of the greatest games of all time, and if you start second-guessing that, you're probably in trouble.
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I couldn't have said it much better. As a backer, I'm not the slightest bit mad or disappointed with the news of this hiatus IF it means that they will refocus and give us something closer to what was originally promised. I would have been happy with that...maybe even over the moon, depending on how good it turned out to be (and it was looking great, by any measure).

As long as he is being honest and didn't feed us a load of bull, I'm perfectly content to wait it out if they'll carry out their original vision of what the game was supposed to be. It sounds like they got away from that, and although the end product could certainly have been great, it's obvious that the scope creep and some decisions along the way caused problems for the project. So here we are.

I doubt that they scrapped all of their work from the Unity project, so I guess they could pick up from where they left off before the engine switch and complete that. Or they could continue with Unreal and just stick with a badass remaster rather than trying for a SS 1.5 that strays from the original concepts. I don't really care, as long as they deliver a solid project that is faithful to the original SS.
 
Lateralus said:
I couldn't have said it much better. As a backer, I'm not the slightest bit mad or disappointed with the news of this hiatus IF it means that they will refocus and give us something closer to what was originally promised. I would have been happy with that...maybe even over the moon, depending on how good it turned out to be (and it was looking great, by any measure).

As long as he is being honest and didn't feed us a load of bull, I'm perfectly content to wait it out if they'll carry out their original vision of what the game was supposed to be. It sounds like they got away from that, and although the end product could certainly have been great, it's obvious that the scope creep and some decisions along the way caused problems for the project. So here we are.

I doubt that they scrapped all of their work from the Unity project, so I guess they could pick up from where they left off before the engine switch and complete that. Or they could continue with Unreal and just stick with a badass remaster rather than trying for a SS 1.5 that strays from the original concepts. I don't really care, as long as they deliver a solid project that is faithful to the original SS.
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Yeah, I'm hoping the same. If they're really refocusing this, and not just softening the blow for an upcoming cancellation or something, then I'm all on board with that.

I completely understand feature creep, and having what seem to be good ideas for improvements, but then you may as well be making something new. Nothing wrong with that either. Where it does become a problem, is drawing a line between quality of life type improvements to just taking full creative license. (when building a recreation anyway)
 
System Shock remake still happening says Nightdive Studios, now due in 2020

"As we geared up and started moving forward with [the System Shock reboot]" explained Kuperman, "we began to run into feature creep..."All of those things like 'you know what would really be cool, how we might reinterpret this', various people wanted to put their imprint on it...as this process evolved over a period of time, it grew in complexity, and it veered away from this original representation."...ff the project had continued to follow that particular trajectory, said Kuperman, "It wouldn't have been true to the System Shock vision."...to that end, Nightdive's System Shock will now revert back to the studio's originally pitched vision: "Our intention is to ship exactly the game that was promised, with as much of the features that were promised as we can, in a timeframe that will get it out as fast as we can."

That, said Kuperman, will likely mean a release in "Q1 of 2020."...

https://www.pcgamer.com/nightdive-t...irection-expects-release-probably-q1-of-2020/
 
That's a long wait, but I have no problem whatsoever with them reverting back to the original formula as it looked great. It stinks that we could have had it sooner had they not gone into a different direction, but gamewise I have plenty to keep me busy in the meantime.
 
The wait indeed sucks, but at least they realized the error in their ways. The original game with modern graphics and quality of life features was all we wanted.
 
I'm happy they realized this. I'd actually welcome a new game from them using all their ideas. However, for a System Shock remake, I wanted an actual System Shock remake. If I see some decent progress toward the new goal, I'd even consider another donation. I'd like to see them stay on track for a bit though first.
 
so the $$ people already donated was wasted on the design of the game they scrapped?
 
polonyc2 said:
so the $$ people already donated was wasted on the design of the game they scrapped?
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Seems like a portion of it would have been, which is the pretty stupid part of all this. Still sounds like we'll be getting what we paid for though, just a bit later than expected. I thought where they were headed was still interesting, but deep down I still wanted the original project more. If I still end up getting it, even if late, I'll be happy. I guess it was a learning experience, and since some portion of these guys and another studio are working on SS3, it probably had some value. Maybe some of the assets can still be used as well. Also, since they switched from Unity to Unreal, at least that development (scrapped or not) went some way toward gaining familiarity with the engine and tools.
 
I will never understand the desire to "remaster" a game and make a bunch of changes. That isn't what people want, unless there was some fatal flaw in the original that could be fixed.

I guess this will be one of those that I forget about and then am surprised when it releases a few years later. Which is fine.
 
Project Update #40: System Shock by Nightdive Studios



General Update from Hiatus
Hey everyone, it’s Stephen from Nightdive with the latest update. The last few weeks have been challenging, but at the same time it’s been enlightening. As some of you know I’ve been spending more and more time with the community in Discord answering questions and making reassurances that yes, we are still developing the game. I’ve also been speaking and interacting with many of you one on one so as to better understand how the latest news impacted you and your feelings towards the project. The vast majority of you agree that we are doing the right thing and that what you want is a high quality game that adheres closely to the vision of the original System Shock rather than the reinterpretation that we were previously working toward.

We had a brief respite, and took the time necessary to make some tough decisions which included saying goodbye to some of the developers that you’ve come to know through past updates. What we’re left with is a concentrated team that consists of the original developers who worked on the Unity demo. With that said, let’s take a look at the work we’re doing.

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So what does this mean?

It means we’ve gone back to the original vision we shared with you at the start of our Kickstarter campaign - this time with more reliable performance and higher fidelity visuals thanks to the Unreal Engine.

Are we starting over, is this all that’s done?

No, we’re not starting over. We have been able to re-use the majority of work we’ve done over the past year and we’re making significant progress in a very short amount of time. With that said we’ll be inviting our highest tier backers to privately test the game beginning in September at which point we estimate that the game will be fully playable, from start to finish. The majority of the art won’t be finished, but we’ll be ready to start high-level testing.

_________________________________

Woohoo! That answers some of our questions that arose after the last update and should be music to our ears.
 
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Lateralus said:
No, we’re not starting over. We have been able to re-use the majority of work we’ve done over the past year and we’re making significant progress in a very short amount of time. With that said we’ll be inviting our highest tier backers to privately test the game beginning in September at which point we estimate that the game will be fully playable, from start to finish. The majority of the art won’t be finished, but we’ll be ready to start high-level testing
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if the game will be fully playable in September and they're starting high level testing then why do they need until 2020 to release it?
 
polonyc2 said:
if the game will be fully playable in September and they're starting high level testing then why do they need until 2020 to release it?
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probably because they need to finish the "majority of the artwork"... being fully playable I suspect means they took a vertical slice of the entire game to get all game-play mechanics working and get an idea of how long it'll take to make 1 level or area, so now they can estimate how long it'll take to create the remaining ones.
 
I'm just glad they made the right choice instead of pushing through whatever new idea garbage they had going on.
 
Mchart said:
I'm just glad they made the right choice instead of pushing through whatever new idea garbage they had going on.
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Yeah, they were taking far too much license for a remake. On the course they were on, they would have been better to just join the SS3 team. I'm glad they went back to a faithful remake, because that's what everyone got on board for. It's looking pretty nice too. It's what Citadel always looked like in my head. I also like that they're taking so much care in making cool doors. :D
 
Pre-alpha or not, they should have tried to hide the massive framerate drops for an official video release.
 
Lateralus said:
Oh. My. God.
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Indeed! Since I backed the SS1 project I got an email about an SS2 related Twitch Stream. I wrote it off as something that would probably not interest me. This is the last thing I expected to see when I woke up, and couldn’t have been more wrong.

Really excited about this. Just having an engine that’s a touch less glitchy is enough to make this worthwhile.
 
J3RK said:
Really excited about this. Just having an engine that’s a touch less glitchy is enough to make this worthwhile.
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I played SS2 when it was released on Steam back in 2013...still a great game but I needed to install a bunch of mods to improve the experience...this new version should be better...I wonder what improvements they are making to it
 
polonyc2 said:
I played SS2 when it was released on Steam back in 2013...still a great game but I needed to install a bunch of mods to improve the experience...this new version should be better...I wonder what improvements they are making to it
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Not sure, but I read that they’re moving it to their in house engine. That alone should provide all the quality of life sorts of things, and added stability.

I usually just use SHTUP (texture update) and the latest community fixes (before that big patch was released a couple years back). If they do anything with the visuals, I hope they don’t alter the aesthetic. That’s why I only use SHTUP and not all the other visual enhancements. A lot of them are impressive, especially that they’re running on the Dark Engine. Many though lose something somehow.

I was just about to give this a play, but now I’ll hold off for this.
 
J3RK said:
Not sure, but I read that they’re moving it to their in house engine. That alone should provide all the quality of life sorts of things, and added stability.

I usually just use SHTUP (texture update) and the latest community fixes (before that big patch was released a couple years back). If they do anything with the visuals, I hope they don’t alter the aesthetic. That’s why I only use SHTUP and not all the other visual enhancements. A lot of them are impressive, especially that they’re running on the Dark Engine. Many though lose something somehow.

I was just about to give this a play, but now I’ll hold off for this.
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yeah I also don't want the core gameplay or aesthetics to be changed too much...when I played it on Steam I installed SHTUP, Rebirth, Rebirth Part 2 Earth, FourHundred and SHMUP
 
J3RK said:
Indeed! Since I backed the SS1 project I got an email about an SS2 related Twitch Stream. I wrote it off as something that would probably not interest me. This is the last thing I expected to see when I woke up, and couldn’t have been more wrong.

Really excited about this. Just having an engine that’s a touch less glitchy is enough to make this worthwhile.
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This is big. For me, outside of a true SS3, this one has almost as much of my attention as something like Cyberpunk 2077.

I'm really excited for the current SS remake that they're working on, but I never really played the original so there's not really a strong nostalgic connection there for me. I am looking forward to playing it because it will allow me to experience the original without the primitive graphics or gameplay getting in the way. But I have a deeply rooted attachment to System Shock 2. It was one of the games that blew me away with its setting and mechanics, and still manages to creep me the hell out even with its dated visuals.

I'll be watching this with laser focus.
 
Cool. I tried playing SS1 a while back and just couldn't get into it. SS2 I could do...but like many said, kinda requires a bunch of mods these days. So, I think I might give it a stronger go when this comes out. Reminds me of Blood in the sense that heavy mods we kinda needed to get a solid experience out of it. Their release just made the whole thing easier to just install and play. Which, is kinda what I prefer these days. Though, installing something like Doom 64 is always the neat part of PC gaming.

I pretty much buy all of Nightdive's releases when they come out. They are just a worthwhile company to support. I really like their mission to get these old games running on modern hardware. I would lose my shit if they were able to get Dark Forces.
 
twonunpackmule said:
Cool. I tried playing SS1 a while back and just couldn't get into it. SS2 I could do...but like many said, kinda requires a bunch of mods these days. So, I think I might give it a stronger go when this comes out. Reminds me of Blood in the sense that heavy mods we kinda needed to get a solid experience out of it. Their release just made the whole thing easier to just install and play. Which, is kinda what I prefer these days. Though, installing something like Doom 64 is always the neat part of PC gaming.

I pretty much buy all of Nightdive's releases when they come out. They are just a worthwhile company to support. I really like their mission to get these old games running on modern hardware. I would lose my shit if they were able to get Dark Forces.
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Completely agree with supporting Nightdive. They are an incredibly cool group of people.

As far as mods, I partially agree, but then, I played say System Shock 1 in the DOS days in 1994, and enjoyed it so much then, that I could still actually enjoy it that way. That said, playing the Enhanced Edition is night and day, and I'm so glad they made it. (and the community that came up with most of those improvements before Nightdive rolled them all together) I think the same will be true with System Shock 2. I can still play it more or less vanilla, as long as the necessary patches are installed for stability.

One thing that I've noticed, (and the reason I will only use SHTUP) is that many of the model packs, while cool, make it more apparent just how few enemy types there are. With the old low-poly models, they're obscure enough to really go unnoticed in that regard. If you have updated high-poly models that all look the same, it's way more apparent that the whole game only contains a super-finite amount of enemies. Rebirth is the one that has this impact the most thought IMO. There are some more subtle ones that just update certain object, weapons, etc. that are a little less intrusive in that way. SHTUP is cool because it's basically all the same textures, just higher resolution, readable, etc. So nothing really changes as far as the original vision. I haven't tried SHMUP, but I think I'll check that one out.

I'm all for quality of life changes. Mouselook on System Shock 1 is like the gods descended from the heavens and granted us a new mode of existence. :D
 
Conman said:
Not to be a buzzkill but how about shipping your first product instead of going all Chris Roberts and promising a second game.
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It's like "hi, I'm here and I want to give you money- will you let me give you money so you can keep doing what we both love?".

And then having them say "no".
 
Conman said:
Not to be a buzzkill but how about shipping your first product instead of going all Chris Roberts and promising a second game.
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I agree, announcing a new game before the first one is out, sets off all kinds of alarm bells for me.

They should've definitely held off with the announcement until after shipping the first one. Unless they burned trough their funds and ramping up for another crowdfunder even before they ship the SS remake.
 
didn't they say Q1 2020 for the SS1 remake?...so if they announced SS2 Enhanced then that must mean it's looking good and on schedule...SS2 Enhanced is not a complete rebuild so it should be a quicker turnaround
 
Funny how many people have never heard of software companies having multiple teams. Let's just jump to the conclusion instead that they're pulling valuable resources off of their main project in order to put out something else. ***rolls eyes***

They've released several things since the SS1 Remake was announced.

They did the SS1 Enhanced edition after the remake announcement too. Nobody complained about that.

But... no... let's get our pitchforks!!! Get em!!!!

I'm also guessing that the people above who seem to have an issue with this didn't back the SS1 Remake?

I did, and this is nothing but the best news I could hear.

They've released/re-released over 20 games over the past few years. Many of which were released during the SS1 remake project which has made steady progress from its inception (even during the re-focus that happened). 20 games that would either need to be run under DOS emulation or on an old DOS PC, are now available, some even greatly enhanced, and running on modern machines. Anyone that can find fault with these guys doesn't have enough real things to be pissy about.
 
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J3RK said:
Funny how many people have never heard of software companies having multiple teams. Let's just jump to the conclusion instead that they're pulling valuable resources off of their main project in order to put out something else. ***rolls eyes***
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They've also had to restart development due to being miss-focused.

This is the root of the complaint.
 
J3RK said:
Completely agree with supporting Nightdive. They are an incredibly cool group of people.

As far as mods, I partially agree, but then, I played say System Shock 1 in the DOS days in 1994, and enjoyed it so much then, that I could still actually enjoy it that way. That said, playing the Enhanced Edition is night and day, and I'm so glad they made it. (and the community that came up with most of those improvements before Nightdive rolled them all together) I think the same will be true with System Shock 2. I can still play it more or less vanilla, as long as the necessary patches are installed for stability.

One thing that I've noticed, (and the reason I will only use SHTUP) is that many of the model packs, while cool, make it more apparent just how few enemy types there are. With the old low-poly models, they're obscure enough to really go unnoticed in that regard. If you have updated high-poly models that all look the same, it's way more apparent that the whole game only contains a super-finite amount of enemies. Rebirth is the one that has this impact the most thought IMO. There are some more subtle ones that just update certain object, weapons, etc. that are a little less intrusive in that way. SHTUP is cool because it's basically all the same textures, just higher resolution, readable, etc. So nothing really changes as far as the original vision. I haven't tried SHMUP, but I think I'll check that one out.

I'm all for quality of life changes. Mouselook on System Shock 1 is like the gods descended from the heavens and granted us a new mode of existence. :D
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Well, one of the things that tends to make me lose focus is the abundance of choice. It takes a while for that to filter down for me into a style that works for me. It's definitely overwhelming at times. Like, I heard SS2 really takes two or so playthroughs to really click with people. Sort of the same way for the recent Prey. Which, I haven't fully unlocked the understanding to yet.

I'm kinda of "completionist" when it comes to games and first time playthroughs. Because I don't really have time to do another. So, games where I can't do everything in the first go...tend to make me go batty.
 
twonunpackmule said:
Well, one of the things that tends to make me lose focus is the abundance of choice. It takes a while for that to filter down for me into a style that works for me. It's definitely overwhelming at times. Like, I heard SS2 really takes two or so playthroughs to really click with people. Sort of the same way for the recent Prey. Which, I haven't fully unlocked the understanding to yet.

I'm kinda of "completionist" when it comes to games and first time playthroughs. Because I don't really have time to do another. So, games where I can't do everything in the first go...tend to make me go batty.
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I agree with that. In fact, it took me 2-3 attempts just to get into both SS1 and SS2 enough to finish them. However, once I did finish each one once, I've been playing them once a year (ish) alternately ever since. I still manage to find something new, or forget about something and get surprised all over again too. :D These, and a few of the Ultima games are among the few games that ever did that for me. (Doom 3 is another one, ChronoTrigger, Marios and Zeldas fall under the same category.)

Most other games though, I make it through once, maybe twice, and that's pretty much it. Or maybe I'll revisit several years later, but definitely not regular plays like the ones I mentioned above.

I'm also a completionist within reason. I didn't collect 900 Korok seeds in Breath of the Wild though. :p I'll explore everything I can find, collect as much stuff as possible, but if it's too far out there, I'll call it good at MOST of a game. :D
 
J3RK said:
Funny how many people have never heard of software companies having multiple teams. Let's just jump to the conclusion instead that they're pulling valuable resources off of their main project in order to put out something else. ***rolls eyes***
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I could totally agree with this argument IF it was Blizzard or Bethesda or some developer large enough to have multiple teams.
 
Conman said:
I could totally agree with this argument IF it was Blizzard or Bethesda or some developer large enough to have multiple teams.
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Well, those are large conglomerates with multiple entire studios, that each contain multiple teams. (and with the exception of id and Arkane, still don't release things with the quality level of Nightdive) Blizzard is ok I guess, but they kinda lost relevance to me personally. They still make fairly good quality stuff though. I wouldn't fault them for working on multiple things at a time.

Nightdive is TINY by comparison, but they still have more going on there than just the SS1 remake. As well they should.

Also, sticking a handful of people on a project like porting SS2 over to their in-house engine, porting in assets, etc. is not the same thing as developing multiple games anyway. What Nightdive does is quite a bit different than the studios you mentioned.

I think no matter who the studio is, it's always an intelligent decision to be somewhat cautious with purchases, do your research, don't pre-order unless you're completely sure, etc. Maybe a bit of healthy skepticism is ok too. However, worrying about the SS1 Remake because they're also doing a smallish update to SS2 is just silly IMO. Even if they did divert a few resources, but kept the SS1 project staffed adequately it would still be just fine.

If you backed the SS1 remake, you get monthly emails with status updates, images, videos, and commentary with EXACTLY what they are working on, and what the project looks like. I get two of these emails a month. Nothing I've seen runs up any red flags.

I imagine they didn't just start on this SS2 project. They've probably been working on it for a little while, and yet I still see progress on the SS1 project just like always.

People should just relax. That's all I'm saying. There should be more companies out there doing what these guys do with the same level of quality and passion for it.
 
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J3RK said:
Funny how many people have never heard of software companies having multiple teams. Let's just jump to the conclusion instead that they're pulling valuable resources off of their main project in order to put out something else. ***rolls eyes***

They've released several things since the SS1 Remake was announced.

They did the SS1 Enhanced edition after the remake announcement too. Nobody complained about that.

But... no... let's get our pitchforks!!! Get em!!!!

I'm also guessing that the people above who seem to have an issue with this didn't back the SS1 Remake?

I did, and this is nothing but the best news I could hear.

They've released/re-released over 20 games over the past few years. Many of which were released during the SS1 remake project which has made steady progress from its inception (even during the re-focus that happened). 20 games that would either need to be run under DOS emulation or on an old DOS PC, are now available, some even greatly enhanced, and running on modern machines. Anyone that can find fault with these guys doesn't have enough real things to be pissy about.
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Indeed. They have been doing monthly updates for the SS1 remake on Kickstarter. Last update was just posted August 5.
 
J3RK said:
Funny how many people have never heard of software companies having multiple teams. Let's just jump to the conclusion instead that they're pulling valuable resources off of their main project in order to put out something else. ***rolls eyes***
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If I have 30 people dividing it into two teams of 15 won't change how much resources I have :p
 
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