While the surface has been changed considerably, the core of System Shock remains the same. Nightdive has also retained the computer readouts and dashboards that cover the walls, which glow and flicker in the dark as you explore.

I also love how everything has a slightly pixelated texture up-close, a stylistic choice that lets you see that twenty-five-year-old game if you look closely enough.

More than once I walked past a shadowy alcove only to have a thing reach out and try to tear my face off. The addition of dynamic lighting and shadow makes a huge difference to the atmosphere of the game. No doubt you can see this from the screenshots, but Nightdive’s remake looks fantastic, paying its dues to the original game’s vivid colour palette while doubling down on the game’s survival horror theme, wreathing everything in viscous shadows. With nothing but a lead pipe and a couple of cybernetic implants to your name, you need to figure out precisely what’s going on, and how to stop it. Specifically, the demo allowed us to explore Citadel Station’s medical deck, where your indentured hacker protagonists awakes after six months of healing cryosleep to discover the station has been overrun by a virus unleashed everyone’s favourite AI matriarch, SHODAN. But having watched some of the original gameplay footage on Youtube, the contents of the demo appears to be largely faithful in terms of story, weapons, enemies and so forth. Nightdive’s overhaul of System Shock takes the skeleton of the original game, updates the visuals and refines the systems, then drenches the whole thing in an atmosphere so thick it could choke a hippo.Ī brief caveat, it’s been a while since I played the original System Shock, so it’s difficult for me to say precisely how authentic the remake is. That’s the main thing I gleaned from the couple of hours I spent with the demo, released for a fleeting 48 hours in the wake of last week’s Game Awards. Nightdive’s Remake is a stark reminder – System Shock is a survival horror game. System Shock’s bleepy-bloopy sound effects and unconvincing MIDI Soundtrack do not.

Those games still carry a palpable sense of tension. While it may have been scary in its day, time has worn away much of the original’s atmosphere, especially if you compare it to the original DOOM or Shock’s still-terrifying sequel. It is, of course, a game about surviving a horrific situation, but I’ve always thought of it as an RPG first, a game about coming up with your own solutions to the problems you’re presented with. I’ve never considered System Shock to be a survival horror game.

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