System Shock Demo

Warning for mild gameplay spoilers. Clearly a lot of improvement since the early days of the demo in 2016(!). A lot of the things mentioned in the reviews of that time have been addressed. (range of melee, graphic settings, UI, etc). The demo is not without its issues. My experience in short; good re-recreation of the old school sci-fi horror survival atmosphere. The graphics work well; low-fi enough to capture that nostalgia and high-fi enough to help with the creepy feel of the game. It looks good, just a few textures here and there that I assume are placeholders (as mentioned during start-up) Combat is pretty decent for that kind of setting; conserving ammo is key. Though Doom it is not. No cheap jumpscares so far either. The not-so-good: What stopped me from playing further was the cyberspace part; the game doesn't save the 'invert mouse' setting, so I already had to re-select that every time I start/load. Not a big deal for a demo. However, in the cyberspace part, the mouse axis appears fixed: whatever I selected before had no impact and the menu for changing the control options is not available. That made the full 3d environment basically unplayable. And while that obviously affects my opinion of this part of the game, it is a bit too old school for my taste. While I enjoyed the original Descent in the day, this feels like a minigame that takes a little too long. Just let me get back to creeping through corridors and shooting stuff. Because that part is fun. Performance: While it runs fine on my older machine, I have had some crashes when closing the game and in the cyberspace bits. I do hope they spent the recent months on polishing the game and not the demo.

its a good looking game i have system shock original and remaster and 2 only have played through 2 tho im not sure why but the hot keys and grenade does not seem to work for me i will likely try to play the original game before this comes out so i have a good prospective to go on

Oh my, I totally missed the Kickstarter. After playing the demo, I am more than thrilled and hyped that this is going to be an excellent chance to relive the classic. System Shock is one of my everlasting Top 10 games of all times so I am naturally stoked that this is so good in antmosphere, sound and performance. As this is free, please, install it, play it and relive a modernized game from a classical era.

The others have already adequately pointed out the playability, mechanics issues etc. Here's my concern, though I sincerely hope it's not a valid one. Most who have played the original - whether they like the genre or not - understand what a masterpiece it was for its time. It is quite astounding that they did what they did with it, and I think that's a party what makes the original so enjoyable. A Doom contemporary, yet so, so much ahead of its time. But, that was in '94. What was fresh, innovative, unprecedented and ingenious then has become rehashed, cliche and done-to-death by now (ironically, thanks to the original's influence on game development). Sure, I loved the demo since I think the original was so great. But is that enough? I mean, the first SS to me is about the best game ever made; but in that, I include the consideration when it was made. It's a difficult balancing act that the developers have to walk. On one hand this will certainly please those who played the original. But it has to offer something for the new players too, and then you risk upsetting the old timers. For instance, do you really want the same level design that constrained the programmers due to the limitations in '94? I'd rather see a sequel that is faithful to the original's feel; that way, you have a chance to satisfy both camps and create a whole new world within the SS universe. A world where I don't know the exact corridor where Shodan first craps my pants, or what's ahead. But maybe I'm too skeptical. After all, I did like the demo, and many new gamers who haven't played the original seem to accept it too. Maybe it's doable. Maybe it'll still feel "new", smart and immersive, not just a splendid deja vu. I sure wish it the very best. The Saturn vista is fantastic, btw. I always hoped I'd find that in the original once I got far enough. Just please don't have the same view in windows of rooms facing different directions. We SS -kind of gamers notice that stuff.

When I downloaded this and played it, I thought it was promising, but I wonder where this project is at, development-wise. It's been almost 4 years since the demo first became available and still the game is not completed. Has it been abandoned?