System Shock 3 is up to Tencent, confirms Nightdive Studios

The missing in action System Shock 3 is still entirely in the hands of Tencent. That's according to Nightdive Studios CEO Stephen Kick, who in an an interview with VGC said that the rights to make System Shock 3, originally licensed to OtherSide Entertainment, had been sold on to and remain with Tencent.

"They then subsequently sold their rights to Tencent," Kick explained. "So Tencent currently has the rights to the third game, and we have the rights to do the remake of the first game and potentially a remake of the second game. That’s pretty much where it stands right now."

Tencent hasn't said anything since the rights acquisition. It was unclear if OtherSide was working alongside Tencent for a bit, but we learned this year that System Shock creator Warren Spector's OtherSide entertainment hasn't worked on System Shock 3 since 2019.

"So Tencent currently has the rights to the third game, and we have the rights to do the remake of the first game and potentially a remake of the second game. That’s pretty much where it stands right now," said Kick. "I think they technically could do 4 and 5 as well, but they’d have to do 3 first. So, we’ll see."

Nightdive, meanwhile, is still cracking along on its remake of System Shock. They dropped a new trailer this week, and a build is playable at Gamescom. Kick also said at Gamescom that System Shock creators Warren Spector and Paul Neurath have been providing feedback on Nightdive's game builds throughout development.

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.