
Upon completing Diego’s task, The Hacker is surgically fitted with a cyberspace implant and left in a medically-induced healing coma for six months. Diego offers you a deal, if you agree to hack Citadel Station’s AI and turn off its ethical constraints, he will drop the charges against you and provide a military-grade neural implant. The Hacker was apprehended and brought to Citadel space-station at the behest of Edward Diego, a Trioptimum bigwig, subsequently. System Shock puts you in the role of “The Hacker”, who was caught trying to access the Trioptimum corporation’s file network. Image 1: Four difficulty selection options The Introduction Summarized Note: I left all difficulty levels at their default values and recommend others do the same for their first experience. Even the four difficulty menu options may be confusing for first-time players as their effects can’t be fully understood without experiencing the game. System Shock (1994) and by extension System Shock: Enhanced Edition, doesn’t assist the player in understanding the game’s controls and mechanics. By acquiring the franchise, Nightdive were able to release System Shock: Enhanced Edition, which improves on the dated controls of the original, and crowdfund a modern remake. In the early 2010s, Nightdive picked up the rights to digitally distribute System Shock 2, and subsequently the System Shock franchise, from the Meadowbrook Insurance Group. While Thief was passed on to other studios, System Shock’s rights lay dormant with an insurance firm following the closure of Looking Glass. The System Shock franchise was created by the team at Looking Glass Studios, who closed their doors in the year 2000, two months after releasing Thief 2: The Metal Age. If it weren’t for Nightdive Studios, I may not have returned to the original title.Ī Brief Summary of System Shock’s Revival Yet for all the nostalgic value of its sequel, I barely remember experiencing System Shock (1994) as a child. Likewise, I can still remember experiencing System Shock 2’s big reveal of the character Shodan on my Windows 95 machine, complete with a 3dfx Voodoo Banshee graphics card.

Quake, Thief, Descent, Doom, and Betrayal at Krondor… these games all hold a special place in the 90s nostalgia bank of my long-term memory.
