Despite years of anticipation and teasers, the threequel to cult-classic System Shock 2 may be dead. That’s according to an RPG Codex poster named Kin Corn Karn, who claims to be a former employee of OtherSide Entertainment, the developer responsible for the game.
Karn couldn’t confirm whether System Shock 3 had been wholly canceled, but he did reveal that the team is “no longer employed there.” While “core systems were nearly done” and there was “real gameplay,” he admitted that OtherSide was “way behind” on content.
By and large, the project sounds like it’s been abandoned and will never see the light of day. Karn only decided to speak out because he “saw so much confusion about the state of the company” and wanted to provide some “first person information.”
The sequel to 1999’s System Shock 2 was originally announced way back in 2015 and generated plenty of hype due to the involvement of legendary game designer Warren Spector (Thief, Deus Ex, Ultima, Wing Commander, et al.). BioShock’s Ken Levine – lead designer of the original sequel – had opted out, but it would have seen the return of Terri Brosius as the voice of SHODAN, the creepy artificial intelligence who served as the primary antagonist for both games.
Just five months ago, OtherSide Entertainment published a pre-alpha gameplay teaser for System Shock 3. The footage looked promising and alluded to a worthy follow up to the horror-inspired action RPG franchise, but evidently, it was just a precursor for vaporware.
There’s some good news left in the System Shock universe, however. Nightdive Studios is working on a remake of the first game, and it appears to be shaping up fairly well based on a new hour-and-a-half demo that was uploaded last month. Nightdive released an enhanced version of System Shock in 2015, but this is a complete reboot and “re-imagining” that’s scheduled to debut this year.