One of the nicer bits of news this week was the announcement that System Shock 3 is finally being made, following the resolution of the legal quandary surrounding the assets and the IP.
Otherside Entertainment are the studio tasked with making the sequel to the iconic Looking Glass series, and today they’ve put out a cool teaser site that’s worth your attention.
In case you’re unfamiliar with Otherside’s work, they’re the studio responsible for reviving the Ultima Underworld series through the Kickstarter project Underworld Ascendant. I’m not entirely sure how the new studio is going to cope with their own Kickstarter game and System Shock 3 at the same time, but they’re working on it all the same.
But we’re not focusing on Underworld Ascendant today; we’re focusing on System Shock 3, and specifically SHODAN. The wonderfully devilish AI is the star of the teaser site that’s just gone up this afternoon, and she’s all too happy to remind you about your mortality and how delightfully unimportant your presence is.
“Did you think I’d forgotten you, insect,” the static tones of SHODAN cries out.
That’s all there is at the moment, although it’s nice to see that they’ve got the SHODAN voice bang on. I’d have been a little gutted if they hadn’t nailed that, to be honest; SHODAN’s the heart and soul of this game.
It’ll be fun to see what they do with the sequel. Personally, I wouldn’t mind if they consolidated the three original classes, as long as they made the skills available through branching trees or some other form of progression. It was always fun working out just how far you were going to go down your chosen career path while skulking around the decks of the Von Braun.
What would you like Otherside to do with System Shock 3?
Comments
17 responses to “You Can Listen To SHODAN Insult You On The System Shock 3 Site”
Add Multiplayer or giveaway system shock 2 to people who buy the game?
That’s your top priority? I enjoyed co-op, but it really did ruin a major part of the game.
System Shock 2 was much better as a single player game. Co-op was fine and all, but the solitude was an integral story and gameplay mechanic. You were a pawn forced to work for a something that would kill you in an instant in order to save yourself from something else that would kill you in an instant. Alone, starved for resources, and in constant danger. One against many.
They can still do a proper co-op, esp since it’s still in concept phase.
My brother and I loved co-op as it still gave you a sense of fear; just instead of “I’m totally screwed!” it was “We’re totally screwed!”
http://othersidetease.com/b779ij.php
ALL OF THE UPGRADES! I want powers, powers and more powers! I want skill trees so rich, deep, complex and generous that I feel like a tiny god!
…And then I want that feeling stolen from me due to panic-inducing resource scarcity. I want to be sweating bullets over the fact that I have so few literal bullets that I’m seriously considering taking a potential hit to my health by engaging some relatively-weak-but-still-dangerous enemies in melee in order to preserve my final-word-in-lethality for the horrors that also await.
There was a very good essay I read (at http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/assorted-essays/the-girl-who-wanted-to-be-god/ ) that reasons that you arguably CANNOT make System Shock 3. If there is another System Shock game then the antagonist must be SHODAN; if SHODAN is the antagonist then she must be defeated; if she is defeated THREE times in a row then it doesn’t matter how creepy and menacing she is, she’s been fatally undermined. Points worth considering.
Also do we really want to see a new System Shock made down to 2015’s absurdly low standards?
So, who specifically is making it?
Also, isn’t it kind of lame that they announce that Shodan is going to be in the game once again? I mean, can’t we move beyond that? Do something different? It’s not like we can do a surprise Shodan reveal again.
Otherside Entertainment.
Yeah I read that. I mean, who’s in the team, what’s their history.
Quite a representation of former Looking Glass and Irrational devs.
https://www.underworldascendant.com/the-game/team.php
There’s not much actual hard evidence of what they’re doing with Underworld Ascendant, but they certainly talk the talk – All systemic game play and player choice.
It’ll be interesting to see how they manage to balance making it feel modern with making it true to it’s origins. Many of the original games (by which I mean the sequel, ss2) design were rooted in late 90’s technical limitations. For example, 3d fps levels at the time were essentially a series of connected boxes floating in darkness. And players would invariably become aware of this through accidental clipping or the like. Instead of trying to hide this, the devs embraced it by placing the game in the only location where endless darkness outside the level makes any sense – in space.
Similarly, to justify the fact that a player who dies will load a save file and reappear a few rooms back, the respawn system was added to help keep the illusion of immersion.
We don’t really face these design issues anymore, but I can’t help but feel like it won’t be a shock game without embracing some of the older quirks of games in that era.
As for my wishlist of features, coop would certainly be up there – we’ve seen a few shock style games over the years, but none included coop. Granted, playing it like this did greatly reduce the scaryness of the game, but it was still a lot of fun.
I don’t mind if the classes stay so long as they feel unique. It should almost feel like a different game, playing with a different class.
On that note, I also liked how important stats and skills felt. The decisions were hard, and you wouldn’t end up being max everything a third of the way thru the game. I want that to stay.
I’d be happy with some better npc presence. I think ss2 may have invented the whole “npc stuck behind glass who dies 5 seconds later” thing, since no one had really got npc’s “right” pre half-life. But that kind of limitation nowdays would almost feel lazy.
I’m sure theres more I’m forgetting, but typing on a phone isn’t exactly the most fun so I’m going to submit this before I accidentally hit back and lose it all.
Kidnapping Terri and Eric Brosius from Tiger Style and Harmonix would be a good start. If there’s one thing they’re going to have to get right to get any where close to a successful followup to System Shock 2, it’s going to be sound design.
Plus there’s the question of -that- voice.
Pro tip – the voice of SHODAN is bang-on because it was recorded by the original voice actress – Terri Brosius, who is working with Otherside.
Never played a system shock before, so I’m keen.
Play the first two (esp 1 before 2); even if 3 doesnt turn out like we all hope, they’re still 2 very good games
Ahhh that wierd tech droning static interference noise in the background! Like the madness of SHODAN is creeping out into the audio file itself!
Good times…
They’ve ticked one item off my ‘must have’ list for System Shock 3 in getting Terri Brosius as SHODAN. Wonder if she’ll also do Delacroix in left-over audio clips too 😀