Sin: Reloaded 'isn't dead' but sure sounds like it's on ice

Enemies standing around in SiN. — (Image credit: Nightdive Studios)

Developer Nightdive Studios has un-announced SiN: Reloaded, a remastered version of classic FPS SiN that was first announced in 2020 for a 2021 release. The original game was developed by Ritual Entertainment and released in 1998, with Nightdive acquiring the rights in 2020 and re-releasing it with its expansion as SiN Gold.

"You may have noticed that there have not been any updates on SiN: Reloaded in quite some time and there’s a good reason for that," said the studio in a new update to the game's Steam page. "As we've been focusing on other projects that exceeded the expected period of development due to reasons that have been stated several times until now, this unfortunately had an impact on some of our other titles, including SiN."

This is a pretty clear reference to Nightdive's System Shock remake, which turned out great but was originally scheduled for release in 2021 before multiple delays. SiN: Reloaded's original announcement trailer is interesting in this context, because it looks like what was initially planned was a fairly straightforward visual upgrade with the game untouched. It looks considerably less ambitious than what was done with System Shock which, while faithful to the original game, is visually overhauled to a much greater degree.

Nightdive says "the project isn’t dead and we will continue to tackle SiN: Reloaded, but at a later date," adding that "the project will also go through some changes which we are not ready to analyze yet."

I would guess that SiN: Reloaded as originally conceived now looks like a slightly unnecessary project when Nightdive has already made the original easily available. SiN is a great FPS but it's an old FPS, and it may be that a more fundamental rework is the only way it can hope to punch-through to a contemporary audience. The game's Steam page remains live for wishlisting, which is probably the only way folk can really communicate to Nightdive they want this to happen, but the release date is now a vague "to be announced".

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."