Nightdive’s 2023 PC release of the classic System Shock was a faithful adaptation of the immersive cyberpunk horror sim. The remake now arrives on the PS5 and maintains that faithfulness… for better or worse. System Shock reminds me of Alisa despite being different genres. Both ask their audience to accept the underlying 1990s outdated but endearing gameplay mechanics. Nonetheless, the System Shock remake does all of this and covers it up in a shiny new audio-visual veneer.
System Shock impresses with its environmental storytelling, challenging gameplay, great presentation, and stable PS5 performance. On the flip side, the game suffers from outdated gameplay mechanics, stiff controls, awkward UI, and an unbalanced difficulty.
Half-Life, BioShock, Prey, Cyberpunk, Portal, and many other spiritual successors owe a lot to the venerable System Shock. I also have to tip my hat to its legacy. However, the remake’s near 1-to-1 insistence of maintaining the original’s slow gameplay and exploration means that it may not appeal to everyone, perhaps not to a modern audience that may value fast-paced action and clearly defined mission objectives.
With that said, I think you owe it to yourself to experience a part of gaming history that is lovingly restored and brought back to life by Nightdive. Who knows, you may just fall under SHODAN’s spell after all.
Story
System Shock put first-person cyberpunk horror on the video game map back in 1994, and its story is especially timely. The game is set in the year 2072. You are a nameless hacker who is stuck aboard a space station. Things get tricky when the onboard AI, SHODAN, starts developing a god complex and experiments with a mutagen virus. Soon enough the entire station is subjected to gruesome experiments. Your objective is to “defeat SHODAN” and put a stop to her grand scheming.
The story stays faithful to the original. Nothing is changed narrative-wise. The story is told through exploration and effective environmental storytelling. This primarily takes place through audio logs, emails, and notes. That’s right, the game does not handhold the player or shower them with cutscenes and mission objectives. Because of this, the player is never quite sure what may lurk around the corner or what to do next. This type of environmental storytelling is very effective in creating uncertainty and unease as you gradually and slowly piece together information about the struggles and the final moments of the crew.
System Shock’s approach to storytelling is immersive and slow, but also a remnant of past times where hardware limitations meant that cutscenes were not feasible. This indirect storytelling method may prove difficult to accept for a modern audience that has been conditioned to follow quest markers and objectives. Indeed, exploration is demanded of you in System Shock. What you put in is what you get out. This means plenty of backtracking and even missing logs if you decide to rush through it. Moreover, there are sections where access codes are required. For these, get ready to dust off your pen and paper as you will have to take notes since these access codes are randomized for each playthrough. It may not be for everyone, but it sure is immersive if you give it a good try.
In terms of characters, SHODAN is the star of the show. There is a good reason why she is one of the all-time great villains. SHODAN develops a god complex to a grandeur that would make Portal’s GLaDOS blush. She mocks you, dishes insults, and reminds you of your impending and horrible end. There is a sadism here that often makes you wonder if it goes beyond the AI’s pure logic and straight into the realm of perverse enjoyment. This is also helped by the unnerving voice modulations of SHODAN as she loses her ethical constraints. Credit is due here to the incredible voice acting of Terri Brosius, who reprises the role of SHODAN. The voice acting for the audio logs is also outstanding and really sells the crew’s desperation.
Gameplay
System Shock is anything but fast-paced. The meat and bones of the game are its mix of gunplay and exploration. Nonetheless, the focus on authenticity means the gunplay is rooted in outdated mechanics. This means the remake’s gameplay can often be a mixed bag.
There is no cover system, meaning you will often trade blows with the enemy, make a retreat, or just have to outmanoeuvre them as you fight. Because this is a claustrophobic corridor sim, it leaves little room for varied gunplay and set pieces. System Shock features several accessibility options including toggling combat and puzzle difficulty at the beginning of the playthrough. Yet even the easiest combat option can prove challenging and unbalanced since the enemies prove to be expert marksmen. Enemies also respawn under certain in-game security level conditions, which will keep you on your toes throughout.
The gunplay is made more difficult due to the stiff controls and aiming. It often feels as if you would still rather have a mouse when playing for the ease of it. The controller aiming feels sluggish. I frequently found myself stopping, aiming, and pulling the trigger to make sure my shots landed. However, I was often bested by the enemy’s superior aim by then.
The exploration revolves around walking through tight corridor mazes and solving puzzles. Both the exploration and puzzles provide for challenging gameplay that will make you think. Puzzles are especially satisfying once you figure them out, while exploration rewards you with more background story, but at the cost of backtracking and having to deal with very similar looking corridors.
The UI and item management is cumbersome, especially as your inventory fills up quickly. Items have to be dragged and ordered in the grid-like inventory, while weapons have to be manually dragged to the action toolbar to be equipped. I struggled to quickly toggle to a new weapon as I was running low on ammo during combat. It rarely feels intuitive and makes equipping and arranging weapons on the spot a chore, breaking the pacing of the gunplay and exploration.
The System Shock remake also brings back the mandatory cyberspace sections (think of them as Descent-like levels), which are digital realms that unlock doors once completed. These 3D wireframe levels were not exactly warmly remembered in the original. I also don’t think this opinion will change with the remake. While these sections now look shiny and new, they still feel tedious and often repetitive to complete even if you can’t always spam attacks to survive as you did in the original. Importantly, the wireframe nature of the cyberspace sections may cause vertigo and motion sickness, so be warned when attempting these. For accessibility reasons, I would’ve preferred if these sections were shortened, redesigned, or made entirely optional.
Presentation
Presentation is where System Shock truly shines. I commend Nightdive for keeping the soul of System Shock intact while featuring up-to-date graphics in Unreal Engine 4. The environments are very well designed to evoke that early 1990s cyberpunk unease.
The lighting is dim and knows when to turn things up and surprise the player. The environments communicate well through bloodied warnings smudged on walls and disfigured corpses lying around. The enemy variety is great and adds that much needed element of body horror we associate with the original System Shock. The cyberspace sections are beautifully recreated with added neon wireframes. The texture work is perhaps the best example in how the remake honors the original. When viewed up close, the textures appear pixelated with voxels. When pulling back, the modern rendering is highlighted. It is a very effective way to remind the audience that what they’re playing is rooted in gaming history.
In terms of audio, the soundtrack adds elements of synthwave when the action gets going. However, it also knows when to pull back and allow the eerie silence to set in. This eerie silence coupled with faint distant mutant screeching and cyborgs muttering robotic orders is particularly effective in setting the cyberpunk horror mood.
Technically, the game features a dynamic 4K resolution at a stable 60fps. I never encountered any meaningful issues or game-breaking bugs. In fact, System Shock is one of the most stable releases I’ve recently had the pleasure of reviewing.
Summary
System Shock has been lovingly restored in this authentic remake. The game impresses through its environmental storytelling, challenging gameplay, great presentation, and stable PS5 performance. Nonetheless, the game suffers from outdated gameplay mechanics, stiff controls, awkward UI, and an unbalanced difficulty. These limitations are mostly a by-product of staying faithful to the original game.
Nonetheless, the System Shock case brings about larger questions about the nature of remakes: Should faithfulness be sacrificed for modernity? If so, to what extent? Depending on your answer to that, you may end up appreciating the System Shock remake for its authenticity. In any case, I believe everyone should try System Shock to see how far we’ve come since and why its legacy has shaped our present.
The Review
Good
