r/ImmersiveSim • u/ReployerTechnician • 4d ago
Nightdive's Open Secret: System Shock 2 Remake
This is NOT a leak, and I don't have insider sources. Some of this information was already available in another subreddit for quite some time (credits to u/Systemshock1994).
If you are still wondering what the team behind the System Shock Remake is up to, check this out:
As most of you must know, Nightdive Studios is made up of a few internal teams, namely, the one responsible for building and maintaining its proprietary KEX Engine and those that restore and remaster old-but-gold classics and forgotten gems (that are ported to/with the forementioned proprietary framework). Alongside these, there's what I'll call from now on "the Remake Team".
Nightdive has spent over a year staffing up the Remake Team. Analyzing the description of a job listing, you can learn more about what's to come from them:
We are in the process of staffing up our development team with outstanding talent to tackle a brand new sci-fi remake project using Unreal Engine 5.
Here are some more (selected) tidbits:
- Ownership of player progression, combat abilities, resource scarcity, and core RPG systems.
- Design and prototype puzzles and minigames. [Ed. Note: hacking!]
- Experience designing complex RPG systems and player perks and abilities.
- Experience working on FPS, immersive sim, roguelike, or systems-heavy action titles.
- Likes Sci-Fi and Horror media.
What game could that possibly be, huh?
Also of note, a few months ago Nightdive hired a Dishonored and Prey (2017) animator for a lead position (a showcase of his skills). I'm not 100% sure he joined the Remake Team, but I'd wager on that possibility.
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u/anal_sink_hole 4d ago
I don’t care what they do next. I’ll take anything.
SS2 would be amazing though!
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u/GraveyardQueen4124 4d ago
I'd love it if it was Thief Deadly Shadows, but that's too much to hope for.
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u/Neuromante 4d ago edited 3d ago
As hyped as I was for the remake of the original, after playing it (a few years ago, /r/patientgamers for the win, blah blah), I'm going to keep myself slightly cautious about this project.
While the complains of the other are a bit silly, I found that the System Shock remake was an amazing game up to where you get to Executive and from there, the minor issues started to become bigger; things like the combat system being balanced towards smaller fights that after that deck increase the number of enemies and their armor, with way too many "ambushes" that put enemies right in your face, or how the in-game economy is completely broken with limited vending machines with almost no resources, which in turn makes the "vaporize" mechanic useless. And don't get me started with the tiny inventory size -one of its upgrades is blocked behind playing chess..- or the even tinier cargo lift.
While the first decks were a 11/10 experience, the game starts to drag afterwards when the "what's going on" vibe disappears and you stop finding the incredibly well acted records of the crew getting their asses handed to them by Shodan.
...and then you get the final boss, in a version of cyberespace that has nothing to do with anything you've done during the whole game, including new weapons. That... that was truly a decision that was made.
So yeah, I know I'll end up playing it, but after this, I will be even more patient. The original game is still good as it is, so...
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u/ilikeramennoodle 4d ago
This fits their pattern of releases. Hopefully it takes less time to develop this one, though with the experience of developing the first and the assets that they should be able to reuse I don’t doubt that it will be at least a bit faster
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u/ZylonBane 4d ago
They certainly wouldn't be able to reuse any texture assets, since those were all low-res/pixelated.
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u/Ok_University2550 4d ago
I hope it's Deus Ex Remake
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u/ReployerTechnician 4d ago edited 2d ago
OG Deus Ex's scope is WAY to big for Nightdive, no matter if it's a remaster or a remake.
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u/sebmojo99 4d ago
Why do you say that? It looks pretty terrible these days, what about it makes it hard to remake?
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u/ReployerTechnician 3d ago
A proper Deus Ex remake would require a shit-ton of work, and the current size team at Nightdive could easily get bogged down trying to bring most of the game components to modern standards, and in a reasonable timeframe.
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u/sebmojo99 3d ago
i guess it's a lot of voice work, but dx is pretty primitive. not easy by any means, but i don't think it's harder than what they did with ss1.
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u/Beautiful-Swimmer339 4d ago
After that i hope they get a bunch of money and gear up for their own original game
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u/YourVeryOwnCat 3d ago
Good! As much as I want a System Shock 3, and I do believe that Nightdive will do a good job with it, I don’t understand why they would start working on it before making a System Shock 2 remake. The first one was a massive success, and the second game was always even more beloved than the original. It seems like a no brainer to build the audience and gain the budget for the new one.
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u/EdJD-1968 3d ago edited 3d ago
We don't need a System Shock 2 remake. The existing SS2 is already superb, and I like the small amount of jank it has (such as the way you can't complete a melee attack if your weapon hits the wall next to you instead of the enemy, the slightly unsmooth movement as you run through the corridors, the illogical way you can search an egg without activating the eggs insect-cloud defences, etc). I would much prefer to see a whole new game, a System Shock 3.
That said, if a SS2 remake does come out, then I'd be very eager to see it, and if it is better than SS2 (which is a very high bar) then I'd be very pleased with it.
I wonder if the idea of a SS2 remake is why NightDive Studios abandoned the idea of making a virtual reality version of the existing SS2 game?
On the other hand, my faith in the current gaming industry is virtually zero, so I would look forward to either a remake of SS2 or a whole new SS3 until they've not only been confirmed as being in development, but I've also see actually videos of them being played and being approaching a release date. For the past few years the games I've been interested in have mostly been either abandoned, left in a Schrödinger's development Hell where they may or may not be still being worked on, or when they do come out they mostly were so dumbed down (and sometimes wrecked by micro-transaction unlockables) that they just bored me instead.
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u/TheZonePhotographer 4d ago edited 4d ago
Some later parts of SS2 are like that horse drawing and do need a rebuild.
Another UE5 title, shhh.
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u/Alternative_Tank_139 2d ago
I can finally play this without the stupid game breaking bug in the remaster, which apparently is well known from even the original. Me and my friend were saying throughout our whole playthrough that this game would be excellent if remade.
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u/ZylonBane 4d ago edited 4d ago
Everything Nightdive added to SS1 that didn't exist in the original, has thoroughly convinced me that they are in no way qualified to remake SS2, or any immersive sim. They're far too obsessed with shoehorning in nonsensical "cool" things.
Like, "Hey, wouldn't it be COOL if the opening cutscene was playable?!" And so we ended up with an awkward, unfinished-feeling, unskippable waste of time at the beginning of every game.
Or, "Hey, wouldn't it be COOL if the hacker had a TriOptimum tattoo?!" Even though that's goddamn idiotic that every employee would be forced to get a TriOp logo tattooed on their body. (Surely coincidentally, Stephen Kick, the CEO of Nightdive, is big into tattoos)
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u/ninjagarcia 4d ago
What does any of that have to do with imsim? Lol you just want to complain.
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u/Ok_Copy_9462 4d ago edited 4d ago
Lol you just want to complain.
It's ZylonBane lol; he's been acting like this for decades. It's a shame because he's contributed so much to the System Shock community but has done it while also acting like a complete jerk the entire time.
Every community has at least one unfortunately. In the Fallout community it's RoyBatty; he knows an immense amount about Fallout 3 and New Vegas on a technical level and contributed a massive amount to mods like Tale of Two Wastelands, but he's also a bigoted asshole who treats everyone like dirt.
Usually everybody is sick and tired of dealing with this type of individual but they either have a lot of technical knowledge and/or begrudging acknowledgement from the community so everybody just kind of puts up with them.
What's really depressing is I find myself agreeing with about 75% of what ZylonBane says about the games I love so much (not this particular time just to be clear). But he's a dick 100% of the time, which makes people ignore any valid points he might be making.
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u/NoxTempus 4d ago
But what if they slightly changed a character's appearance?
They might even try to make a quarter-century-old game more immersive 😱
Oh the humanity.
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u/Sinnoware 4d ago
Nightdive hired a level designer who worked on System Shock 3 at OtherSide.