System Shock Remastered now expected in 2018

Every so often the original System Shock is given a discount, and I'm like, "Hmmm, maybe I should finally play this classic sci-fi RPG." I haven't yet, and I'd like to partly blame Night Dive's System Shock Remastered for that, as it both pretties up the game and gives it a less daunting interface, while getting Chris Avellone to sprinkle his fancy words all over the story.

The remake sailed past its Kickstarter goal a few months ago, and Richard Cobbett seemed quite impressed by the demo, so I'm looking forward to System Shock's grand return in..."Q2 2018"? Wait, wasn't the game expected sometime in December 2017? Yep, but Kickstarter estimates and all that, and Late Spring/Early Summer 2018 is the latest, according to a new update on the Kickstarter page.

That's not too surprising given that the team has just started work on a "vertical slice" for the game, usually a polished slice of its main ingredients created as a sort-of fleshed-out prototype, before work starts on the campaign proper.

There is a bit of good news. Here's a new piece of concept art that looks particularly System Shock-y, by which I mean it shows a spaceship interior, a corpse and lots of blood. (Thanks, Destructoid.)

Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.