Nightdive Studios' long-gestating remake of classic FPS System Shock finally released this week and the consensus surrounding the game is mostly positive. Nightdive has made a name for itself in the past by crafting quality ports of classic first-person shooters to modern platforms, but System Shock represents the company's first foray into a full ground-up remake, and an impressively ambitious one at that. Still, the developer's choice to adhere closely to the original source material in how it crafted the remake presents an interesting case for examining the pros and cons of being too faithful to the original game when re-imagining it for modern hardware and a new audience.
System Shock stands alongside Deus Ex and Half-Life as one of the first-person shooters that completely reinvented the genre upon its release and would go on to help spawn the first-person immersive sim subgenre. The game's sequel, System Shock 2, would be one of the first titles that Ken Levine spearheaded and would serve as the foundational basis for many of the mechanics that would reappear in BioShock. The System Shock remake presents an interesting paradox where the visuals pay homage to the original game but are vastly improved, and the mechanics are still largely stuck in 1994.
System Shock's Faithfulness to its Source Material Both Helps and Hurts the Title
Given System Shock's importance in the history of gaming, it's to be expected that Nightdive would want to recreate the elements of the title that cemented it as an innovative title in the first place. Even though dozens of games have gone on to iterate and improve upon the foundations laid in the original System Shock, fans were sure to go into the remake expecting certain features to make a return. And return they do, albeit in slightly improved and streamlined form thanks to some of the more commonplace quality-of-life features that have become standard in the nearly 20 years since the original's release.
Both the combat and hacking mechanics from the original have been greatly improved in the System Shock remake. Combat in particular has received a significant overhaul to bring it more in line with other contemporary FPS and immersive sims. That said, the point-and-click nature of interacting with the environment and picking up items still feels like it was pulled directly from the original game and is a throwback to other games from the same era. The puzzles in the System Shock remake can also be head-scratchingly obtuse on the higher settings and require some trial-and-error. The end result is a game that looks new but still maintains the feel of the original, for better or worse.
The Best Remakes Strike a Balance Between Homage and Innovation
Nightdive Studios should be commended for the System Shock remake, as it smartly updates the game for new audiences while keeping aspects of the original title that made it such a cult classic. Not every game needs to have mass appeal, and immersive sims are admittedly niche. Still, while System Shock is a great remake, it serves to ignite the conversation about what developers should and shouldn't include when re-imagining a title for modern platforms and whether there is such as thing as being "too faithful" to the source material.
When considering companies that seem to have stuck the perfect balance between honoring fans while also improving and updating games for a new era, Capcom comes to mind thanks to its approach with Resident Evil. System Shock's retrofuturist cyberpunk aesthetic and compelling AI villain are especially prescient in today's world, and perhaps it was in an attempt to preserve what made the original special that Nightdive Studios chose to craft the game's remake as faithfully as possible. Remakes of the medium's luminaries appear to be here to stay, and System Shock is a great, if somewhat flawed, reminder of why the original game had the impact it did.
System Shock is available now for PC, with PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S versions in development.
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