“One of the strategies we’ve adopted from past games that we’ve worked on is that it’s not necessarily about the environment, it’s about what you put in it,” says Fader. Once you’ve noticed, it’s hard to shake - and it’s something Nightdive are working to avoid. It’s that uncanny sense, on the 20th Ayleid dungeon, that you’ve seen that same set of sarcophagi before. The system allows them to get levels up and running quickly, and Fader believes modular design is even better suited to System Shock than it was to Fallout: “Mainly because we don’t have to worry too much about terrain and extreme environments, and fortunately a space station already feels modular in its construction.”Īn issue that Bethesda have run into in the past is ‘asset fatigue’. “And then they go away and construct these things, almost like working with a digital set of Lego.” “What that means is that we have our environment artist creating tiles - chunks of a level, chunks of a hallway, wall pieces, floor pieces, ceiling pieces,” Fader explains. Rebuilding Citadel for the new System Shock couldn’t be more different - the team used a tile-based construction system reminiscent of the one Fader and much of his team worked with on Fallout: New Vegas. It was just something we wanted to put together to show that we were making something: it’s in Unreal, and Unreal will help us to get better visual fidelity at the same time on multiple platforms.”Īsk Ken Levine about working in Thief’s Dark Engine for System Shock 2 and he’ll tell you about carving passageways into the editor, as if space itself was made from dense rock. “I guess what we showed off in the Unreal trailer was more of a tech demo than a final representation of the art style. “Overall, it’s been a pretty seamless transition,” Fader concludes. In March, less than a year after the initial reveal, Nightdive put out another trailer in Unreal. “The code doesn’t really translate, but the core fundamentals of the system we were working on definitely do map over,” says Fader.Ĭreature design, items, weapons, and to a certain degree environmental layouts - all were translated from the Unity demo with a minimum of time lost. Thankfully, Nightdive were able to pull over a “good chunk” of the work they’d already done in pre-alpha. “And instead of having them get up to speed on Unity, it made more sense with what we had in the pipeline to go with an Unreal ecosystem.” “These guys had more Unreal experience than Unity experience,” explains Fader. Nightdive have hired a bunch of “very senior” developers, a number of whom worked alongside game director Jason Fader at Obsidian on Fallout: New Vegas. And second, more pertinent for our purposes, was the team. First, after conversations with both Epic and Unity, Nightdive decided Unreal Engine 4 would be the better choice for hitting their performance targets on consoles. Innovative art style combines retro future design with modern technologyīecome fully immersed: shoot, brawl, crawl, climb, leap and think your way through Citadel Station.There were two important considerations behind the engine swap. Jack into cyberspace to hack the system and open other routes Discover a non-linear story unfolding at your own pace Improve your skills and adapt to take on your foes Face off against the forces of a rogue AI gone mad Stop SHODAN and avert humanity’s destruction. You must explore and battle your way through the depths of a space station gone to hell. The psychotic AI has taken control of Citadel Station and turned the crew into an army of cyborgs and mutants She now plans to do the same to Earth. Witness the rebirth of one of the greatest and most influential games ever created. System Shock is the fully fledged remake of the ground breaking original from 1994, combining cult gameplay with all-new HD visuals, updated controls, an overhauled interface and all-new sounds & music it even has the original voice actor of SHODAN, one of gaming’s most iconic villains.
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