The Neon Horror of System Shock
This column is a reprint from Unwinnable Monthly #177. If you like what you see, grab the magazine for less than ten dollars, or subscribe and get all future magazines for half price.
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Here’s the Thing is where Rob dumps his random thoughts and strong opinions on all manner of nerdy subjects – from videogames and movies to board games and toys.
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Okay, so, System Shock 2 has been a long-revered game in my mind for decades (even though I’ve never actually made it very far). So, of course, I was super excited about the remake of the first game being developed by Night Dive Studios. And also, of course, I was disappointed it was released only on the PC in 2023, then ecstatic when it came to PS5 a couple of months ago. But here’s the thing: My excitement and anticipation still wasn’t enough to prepare me for what I was about to experience.
Despite the cartoonish levels of praise I’m about to heap on this game, I’d never actually played the original System Shock before. I was put off by the cluttered looking HUD and rudimentary visuals, mostly. System Shock 2, on the other hand, always intrigued me. The atmosphere and creeping dread still hit hard even today, regardless of the dated models and textures. It’s a game I loved, but also never played much of. I know that sounds contradictory, but I just really liked the concept, setting and vibes. Then along comes Night Dive and this System Shock remake, which looked fantastic and creepy even when all I had to go on was YouTube lets plays of the Kickstarter demo.
Sitting down to play the finished game on PS5 was, and I know this sounds hyperbolic, a revelation. This is what so many other games over the years – many of which I’ve also developed a fondness for – were trying to be for so long. Bioshock, Prey (2017), Ubisoft’s versions of Deus Ex, etc. And yet none of them hold a candle to this (I know everyone adores Prey but it hasn’t grabbed me anywhere near as much). And here’s this game, which is both new and very much old. Changes abound but so much of the original spirit and approach of the 30-year-old original remains, too.
Because I tend to pay less attention to games I’m really looking forward to, because I like being surprised, I was blindsided by how immersive and legitimately scary System Shock is. Which I remember being kind of funny to me at one point because I remember so many people talking about how scary Bioshock was but I never got that impression. Splicers are kinda creepy, I guess, and there were a few jump scares. Sander Cohen’s section was unnerving, to be sure, but that was just one small part of a much bigger game. And yet here’s System Shock making “scary” seem almost effortless to pull off.
Aside from a handful of mechanical enemies most of what’s still moving around on Citadel Station is horrific. Former station crew being converted into cyborg soldiers, or used for spare parts in even nastier monstrosities. Mutated people, mutated plants, mutated animals, security bots with beefier armor and a human skull fused to the top – it’s a ghastly menagerie. The best/worst part is hearing them stalking the halls. Particularly the humanoid creatures that clearly still have some small part of the person they used to be trapped inside the bio-mechanical nightmare they’ve become.
Of course, none of them hold a candle to SHODAN. I’ve heard about how terrifying she is as an antagonist for years but due to my own limited exposure to the series I’d never actually witnessed her antagonism for myself. Call me old fashioned but I think a sentient artificial intelligence with a god complex and less than zero regard for human life – unless they’re being used in experiments, acting as spare parts or being fed to her “children” – is possibly one of the most terrifying things someone could have gunning for them. She’s like the digital version of the Ancient Enemy.
It’s not just the scares, though. Citadel Station itself was just as responsible for spoiling me on every other immersive sim (shy of maybe the original Deus Ex) I’ve ever played. Yes, it’s absolutely a surreal place for anyone to live and work if you spend more than a few seconds thinking about the layout (though there is a log that tries to justify this by calling it an intentional large-scale psychological experiment), but it also feels . . . tangible? It’s tough to explain.
The sprawling, interconnected maps of the various decks burned themselves into my brain after a while – not unlike the Spencer Mansion from the original Resident Evil (or the remake). Similarly, backtracking is usually necessary, but while some might consider it tedious, I actually really liked it because 1) it was possible to accidentally accomplish a task in advance without realizing it, thus saving on some return trips, and 2) much of it made a kind of sci-fi horror movie sense. Like okay, in movies like that there’s almost always some task the protagonists need to do to escape or save themselves or whatever, and said task is usually stymied by a broken or misplaced thingamadoo. Even Dead Space does this. System Shock’s approach was far more compelling to me because it was kind of tedious.
You can’t get into certain areas in Maintenance right away, but when you have an excuse to go back you can run diagnostics to get a kind of error code. Then input the error code into the right machine to receive instructions on what’s busted and what needs to be replaced. Then locate the replacement part you need. Then explore those previously inaccessible areas to find the one busted component and swap in the new one. Unless you’re playing on a lower difficulty there are zero objective markers or even reminders of what needs to be done. You have to pay attention to logs and the environment, then scrutinize the environments even more. It made me feel like I was inside a trope-filled horror movie in the best way, and in a way I don’t entirely know that any other game has done for me before.
Night Dive’s System Shock remake is far from perfect – manually marking the map doesn’t work, activating abilities like the light or shield is super awkward at best, etc – but it’s also incredible. It’s a very Rob game, but it might just be the most Rob game I’ve ever encountered. More than Bioshock. More than Monster Hunter. More than Robot-fucking-Alchemic Drive even. It’s a classic that was, as cliché as this sounds, legitimately ahead of its time. I’m sure the 1994 version doesn’t hold up quite as well under scrutiny in 2024, but from what I’ve seen a whole lot of what I love about this remake was already in that original release. So yeah, it’s amazing. It’s got all the creeping dread, horror, exploration, satisfying tedium (complimentary) and slightly pixelated neon vibrancy I could have asked for and more.
Fingers crossed we get a remake of the sequel somewhere down the line!
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Rob Rich is a guy who’s loved nerdy stuff since the 80s, from videogames to anime to Godzilla to Power Rangers toys to Transformers, and has had the good fortune of being able to write about them all. He’s also editor for the Games section of Exploits! You can still find him on Twitter, Instagram and Mastodon.
