System Shock Remake Launching May 31, Seven Years After Original Kickstarter

System Shock Remake Launching May 31, Seven Years After Original Kickstarter

After a successful Kickstarter campaign, a very long stretch in development, and several missed release dates, Nightdive Studios’ System Shock remake is finally ready to ship.

The studio and its publishing partner Plaion announced today that the game has gone gold and will launch for PC on May 31. That’s quite a bit sooner than anticipated.

It should be noted that in 2023, the term Going Gold means almost nothing. To Go Gold is a games industry term that means a formal retail build has been settled on and discs are being pressed for sale. In a digital-forward market like PC gaming, it means “we’re ready to announce the release date and keep working on a Day One patch.” I say that not to shade Nightdive, who have worked hard and tirelessly on this remake for many years. It’s just “Going Gold” is an increasingly outmoded industry term and somewhat out of place here.

System Shock is a ground-up remake of Looking Glass Studios’ legendary immersive sim from 1994. Nightdive acquired the rights to System Shock in 2012 and brought on veteran designer Chris Avellone and several key staff from the Fallout: New Vegas dev team to help create it. The Kickstarter to fund the remake’s development began in 2016 and asked for $US900,000. The project was funded with 19 days to go and eventually brought in $US1.35 million from roughly 21,600 backers. Everything looked like it was on track for a 2017 launch — and then, during GDC 2017, Nightdive announced it would move the game from the Unity engine to Unreal 4. The game was put on hold in February of 2018 while Nightdive’s senior management hunted for a publishing partner that could provide further funding. A 2020 release date was floated. That was, of course, derailed by the outbreak of a whole-ass pandemic. Release windows in 2021 and 2022 came and went.

And now, here we are, 21 days from release — 13 years after Night Dive acquired the remake rights and seven years after it began the original Kickstarter push.

The System Shock remake will launch on PC across Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG on May 31, 2023, at 1:00 AEST.

SHODAN approves.


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