You have to offer the newer players at least part of the original experience. 'Our goal is always to remake games so that they look like what you remember, not the way that they actually looked when you played them on your 14-inch CRT monitor,' Kuperman said. The studio already upgraded the game for more modern PC players with System Shock: Enhanced Edition, but the remake will contain a version of the original game and a new experience built from the ground up. For example, in its Turok for the N64 remaster, the studio made a previously unfindable shotgun much easier to find and gave users the option to keep the fog on or turn it off. Not only is keeping the game's original content a priority, but it needs to offer something for more modern players who might not have played the game the first time around. Nightdive now has way more experience crafting remakes and remasters. 'The more that we worked on the game, the more that we wanted to do, and the further we got from the original concepts that made System Shock so great.' It also seems to strike a great balance between old and new, between classic and modern, which has been at the core of many great remakes and remasters over the past few years. Based on my brief time with the footage, it seems on track to hit the studio's target for later this year. While we didn't get hands-on time with System Shock at GDC, we were shown a number of recorded snippets from the game, including a trek through maintenance on Level 3 and one from later on.

Kuperman noted that the developers want to release the game simultaneously across all platforms.

Larry Kuperman, director of business development at Nightdive, was on hand at GDC to give updates on System Shock, and said it's 'largely complete.' He referred to it as being in 'pre-beta' the PC version has all of the weapons, enemies, and other elements, but the team is still working on the console versions.

The remake has been through an engine change and a few different teams, but it's finally on its way towards release. The team hasn't been silent about the process involved with bringing this retro game to newer platforms and audiences, however, thanks to monthly updates on the Kickstarter.

System shock reboot, engine