kickstarter.com/projects/1598858095/system-shock/posts/1638853Tuesday, 7/26 (all times are in PDT)
Here’s a link to the Nightdive Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/nightdivestudios
- 1:00pm - System Shock Pre-Alpha Demo playthrough with NDS folks (Stephen Kick, Jason Fader, Robb Waters, and more)
- 1:30pm - Otherside Entertainment folks join in for commentary (Warren Spector, Paul Neurath, and Tim Stellmach)
- 2:00pm - 4:00pm - System Shock 1 playthrough with commentary
On top of that we’ll be doing a 24 hour Twitch stream from Wednesday at noon (PST) to Thursday at noon, right up to the final minutes of the Kickstarter and a bit beyond. We’re still finalizing the schedule and will have an update tomorrow morning with details
- Jason
---------- Updated at 07:59 PM ----------
That's now, by the way.
polygon.com/features/2016/8/30/12700542/system-shock-3-artSee the first concept images from System Shock 3
Designer Warren Spector talks about Shodan and other returning characters.
When I chatted with Warren Spector back in February, he'd just announced plans to join development house OtherSide Entertainment to make System Shock 3, the next game in one of the most influential role-playing series of the past two decades. His first job, he said at the time, would be to start hiring his team.
Six months on, he's announced the first few hires, all of whom have a long pedigree in development. They include Arturo Pulecio (Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer Online) who started work last month and got straight down to creating concept artwork for the game.
OtherSide released two pieces of art to Polygon, including this image for the game's artificial intelligence super-villain Shodan, as well as an image (further below) of Citadel Station, which was the setting for the original game.
The return of Shodan
Last week, I spoke to Spector again to find out what I could about the game, which is likely a few years away from release. He gave up some basic information about the story, including details of returning characters that will probably be welcomed by fans of the sci-fi action series.
First things first, Spector talked about how Shodan will definitely be a big part of System Shock 3.
"Shodan is the heart and soul of System Shock games," he said. "That's the beauty of System Shock 3; nobody else has Shodan. She'll be at the center of the game, but I also want to put her through some changes.
"Arturo has been working on our version of Shodan, which is going to be interesting and different from what people expect. I expect it will infuriate some people but definitely get people talking."
Shodan — her name is an acronym of Sentient Hyper-Optimized Data Access Network — was the central antagonist in the first two System Shock games. Originally created to service a space station, she is tasked with deleting incriminating files. The player in the original game is a hacker who removes her ethics constraints. This turns out to be a bad move.
Over the course of the two games, Shodan reveals herself to be skilled in manipulating systems and people. Her goal is to annihilate the human race. She taunts and mocks the player. Even in defeat, she finds a way to survive.
"In System Shock 3 I want to explore Shodan's motivations," said Spector. "In the first two games her plan was to destroy humanity because, with the removal of her ethical constraints by the hacker in the first game, she's going insane. But we never explained why she wants to destroy humanity. So we're going to be exploring the idea of a super intelligence and what would motivate a super intelligent AI."
The survivors are back
At the end of the second game, Shodan downloads herself into a human woman called Rebecca Sutton, leaving a cliffhanger. This will be the starting point of System Shock 3.
"We are going to be picking up all of the loose threads of System Shock 2. Rebecca Sutton is going to appear in this game, for sure," he said.
Spector pointed out that there are six survivors from the previous games. Their stories will all be addressed in System Shock 3 as well. Among the NPCs, there's Shodan and Sutton as well as her colleague, Tommy Suarez. The story will also include Rebecca Lansing, who was the player's human guide in the first game.
Also, the game will feature the two previous protagonists: the hacker from the original game, and the soldier from System Shock 2.
"We're going to tell their story," said Spector. "There are a lot of questions that went unanswered in those first two games and we have an obligation to fans to fill in the blanks. For new players I think that will pull them into a compelling narrative."
The story will also delve into the history of Edward Diego, a key character in the first game who persuades the player to hack into Shodan.
The original System Shock takes place in the year 2072, while System Shock 2 takes place 42 years later in 2114, also the year in which the new game picks up the story.
Spector said he wants to create a game that addresses today's concerns and that draws upon modern technological advances to make predictions about the future: "I like to base everything in reality and extrapolate from there. We want to be able to look at where we are today and ask where we might be a hundred years from now."
Like the original, the game will feature virtual spaces as well as real world locations, as the player tackles Shodan on her own cyber turf.
"There's been a lot more research into UI and super intelligence in recent years. That will find itself in System Shock 3," he said. "We understand hacking a lot better than we used to and it will be presented in a completely different way than it was presented in the earlier games.
"Back when we made System Shock, cyberpunk was still at its height in terms of popularity and cultural significance and it was a big inspiration. Nowadays, cyberpunk is a little less current. I've learned over the years that it's foolish to try to convince people to become interested in something they don't care about, so we're finding things that people are interested in today."
Past, present and future
The original games are still going to serve as a central inspiration. Spector played them both recently.
"As I was playing them, I emailed people who worked on the original games," he said. "I would say, 'oh my god, this game is so hard' and the response I would get back would be '1994.' Then I'd say, 'this thing is so big' and the response was '1994.' And then I'd say, the UI in this game is terrible, what were we thinking?' and the response would be '1994.' So it was an eye-opening experience just in terms of how far games have come since then.
"Even so, Shodan was still a compelling character. And we were empowering players in the way we asked them to construct the story themselves. There were some wonderful aspects that we want to keep in System Shock 3, but not the UI!"
I asked Spector if, given that he worked on the first game but not the second, he feels a closer affinity to one than the other?
"I like and respect the second one but it was significantly different from the first," he replied. "I'm constantly struggling with how much we adhere to the tenets of the first one and how much do we adhere to the tenets of the second one. The second game was a much more traditional role-playing game than the first one. It's a mental struggle for me about which direction I want to go in. I will admit that."
In the meantime, he's pulling together the rest of his Austin, Texas-based team. As well as Pulecio, his new hires include tech director Jason Hughes (Wing Commander, Epic Mickey) and design director Sheldon Pacotti (Deus Ex, America's Army).
He wants the team to bring back the spirit of System Shock and the aspects that made it so influential to later game developers:
"20 years ago we were building open-ended, solve-it-yourself kind of games. We used to look at each other and say 'why isn't everyone making games like this?' Now, many more people are making games like that, so of course it's harder to stand out. You have to innovate and I'm confident that we will. We're following in the footsteps of the people who followed in our footsteps. We've got some surprises for people.”
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kickstarter.com/projects/1598858095/system-shock/posts/1693790Update #22
October 2016 Update
Hi everyone! Jason here with this month’s update. In the future, we’re going to have other folks on the team write updates since it shouldn't be just me having all of the “fun”
Project Update
Things are progressing along quite nicely so far. We’re currently about 30% through preproduction with most of our lead team assembled and are working on documentation and proving out our pipelines. This is typically the least fun phase of game development since it’s a lot of meetings and documentation, but it’s also one of the most important phases since it lays the foundation for the rest of the project.
One of the most interesting aspects of this phase is that we’ve been meeting with some of the original devs from System Shock 1 like Austin Grossman, Dorian Hart, and Paul Neurath. The goal is to sync up as much as possible with the original devs to understand what Shock meant to them, get as many details as possible about pretty much everything, and determine what they would have liked to do back then if they had today’s tech. We’re striving to do this brand justice, and that starts with the amazing folks that created it.
Q&A
Every month, we’ll compile some questions we’ve been seeing in the community and answer them as best as we can here.
Q: When will we be able to donate via Paypal?
A: We have all of our legal stuff sorted out for it, but still need to wire things up on the website and Backerkit. We’ll probably have a bulk of it finished early next month, but probably won’t bring it live until January since it will be easier for us to start it in a new tax year.
Q: Where are the forums?
A: I’ll talk about that below
Q: When can we expect our SS1 and 2 steam keys for our backer reward?
A: Daniel should be sending those out within the next few days. Keep an eye on your email address that you used to back our campaign.
Q: Can backers that missed the Discord invite still get an invite to the developer Discord server?
A: Yup! We’ll have invite codes in our forums once they’re up.
Concept Art
I don’t know about all of you, but I definitely prefer pictures to words in Kickstarter updates. Here are a few concepts from the mind of Robb Waters of characters you’ll find in the game:
Cyborg Assassin
Mutant Cyborg
Website and Forums
We are happy to announce that the Nightdive Studios website is up and running! Head on over to http://www.NightdiveStudios.com to check it out! On top of that, our forums are now live, but still under construction. You can register for an account and start posting/replying, but keep in mind we’re still figuring out the best way to arrange everything. When you sign up on the forums, please use your email address that you used to back our Kickstarter so we can award you the proper forum badges (that will happen in a few weeks).
Shout Outs
This month’s shout out goes to Wasteland 3! If you haven’t heard of the Wasteland series, it’s definitely worth checking out. As most of you know, I’ve worked on Fallout, which was originally based on Wasteland. The awesome folks at inXile are back with a Wasteland 3 crowdfunding campaign through Fig and have already been funded.
Here’s what you can expect in this sequel:
If you’re interested in learning more, head on over to their campaign here: https://www.fig.co/campaigns/wasteland-3/
- Party-based role playing.
- Focus on complex story reactivity and strategic combat.
- An evolution of the Wasteland 2 combat system including vehicles, environmental dangers, and a more fluid action system.
- Story-driven co-op. (my personal favorite feature)
- Jason Fader, Game Director on System Shock
That they did:
Probably for the better too.
The 'Slacker Hacker' portal is up as well:
systemshock.com
Probably for the better too.
The 'Slacker Hacker' portal is up as well:
systemshock.com
news.cision.com/starbreeze-ab/r/starbreeze-publishing-signs-otherside-entertainment-s-system-shock--3Starbreeze Publishing signs OtherSide Entertainment’s System Shock 3
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN ( March 14, 2017 ) Starbreeze AB, an independent creator, publisher and distributor of high quality entertainment products , has signed a publishing agreement with Otherside Entertainment regarding the game System Shock 3 . Starbreeze will invest $12 million to bring the game to PC and other platforms.
System Shock 3 – The latest in the series of landmark, award-winning games from Otherside Entertainment is in development under the direction of industry legend Warren Spector and a dream team behind such ground breaking games including the original System Shock & System Shock 2 , as well as Thief: The Dark Project and Deus Ex.
"System Shock is one of those iconic franchises in the history of games that still gets my blood going and Mr. Spector is one of the founding fathers of the modern action RPG" said Bo Andersson-Klint, Starbreeze CEO. "We're greatly looking forward to bringing System Shock 3 to players world wide in our collaboration with Otherside Entertainment and Warren Spector's team. I'll be first in line to play".
“We are thrilled to be partnering with Starbreeze for System Shock 3,” said OtherSide’s CEO Paul Neurath. They truly get games and gamers, and have been able to translate that understanding into a robust publishing business, and build thriving gaming communities around their franchises.”
Starbreeze will be able to recoup 120% of its full investment including marketing costs. Starbreeze share of revenues will become 50% after the investment is recouped. Otherside Entertainement will retain 100% of the intellectual property relating to System Shock 3.
System Shock 3 is currently in the early concept stages of development. Fans can go to the game site ( http://otherside-e.com/wp/games/system-shock-3 ) to receive updates as they become available.
