I've just remembered about those who pre-ordered Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 in 2019...

What really annoys me, is that they keep calling it a remake. It's not a remake.

Nightdive have taken away a crucial element that made the original so great - choice!

The original allowed you to set each element to your own preference. If you wanted to concentrate on the story and puzzles, you could increase the difficulty for those aspects, and it's more of an adventure game.

Or if you wanted to turn it into a 'blast-everything-that-moves', and not care about the story or puzzles, you could do that either.

You could play it exactly as you wanted. But Nightdive have removed that choice, and force you to play as 'blast everything that moves'.

Why is that? It's definitely not a Remaster either. Unless you really want them to call it a Reboot.
And with the upcoming System Shock 2 EE | VR plus the System Shock 3 game technically wasn't canceled to this day, it's hardly a Reboot either.

Remake means a game was created from a ground up with OR without any significant changes to the end product usually fueled by the power of modern tech.
For example in addition to a more powerful game engine and graphical effects, there may be added enemies, tweaked puzzles, retconned / enlarged lore, secret areas, director's cut materials, bonus quests and even a complete change of characters' roles (looks) and events.

Remaster can't provide anything more than a base game with better compatibility and enhanced graphic plus bonus materials. Some minor changes to the core game might be done of course, but nothing major.

Black Mesa (Half-Life), Doom 3 (Doom), Metroid: Zero Mission (Metroid), Final Fantazy 7 Remake (FF7) are some of the better known examples for Remake. System Shock Remake fits perfectly here.

And there is one game called Shadow of the Colossus, originally released for PS2.
For better or for worse the port to PS3 is a Remaster, but the game for PS4 is a Remake because Bluepoint Games remade most of the game assets from the groun up but the game retained the original feel.

So for me it's definitely not a Remaster and Reboot is a strong word as well.

They would never be able to please everyone. If they stay too close to the original, one faction is disappointed for them not being bold or creative enough, if they change too much, purists are pissed.
Too many people with too many different memories of the game.

That's the problem with "reimaginings" / remakes rather than people's "memories" though. It's often the worst way of 'refreshing' old games. With remasters people know what to expect. People complained about newly added bugs but no-one said "Bioshock Remaster is too much like Bioshock!" Likewise, if they're truly filled to the brim with creativity, there's also no substitute for making a new game that simply gives extensive "nods" to the old titles without being constrained by them (Prey 2017 was good precisely because it had several System Shock "Easter Eggs" but also wasn't trying too hard to be System Shock 3). With reimaginings / remakes though, it's often the worst of both worlds with new writers 'creativity' being little more than trying too hard to "make their mark" by bad ret-conning that doesn't fit at all. Of course you won't please everyone, but people who want a radically different game should push for exactly that - encourage devs to make more actually new games.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. If you like to play System Shock as a repetitive 'Kill Everything That Moves', then removing the choice doesn't affect you. Good for you.

But if, like me, you're more interested in playing System Shock for the story and puzzles, then removing that choice is detrimental to the core of the game. You're no longer allowed to concentrate on the story, and instead, forced to play in a style that doesn't interest you.

Nightdive has removed that choice. Why?

Did you ever try to ask them?

Yes. Many times. But they never replied.

It most certainly isn't a shock that the game is delayed yet again.

https://youtu.be/AJ2jDdOfRwM?t=113

I feel you and understand fully.
The idea, from the very beginning, was to turn System Shock into a soulless, generic, one-of-the- many-with-already-seen-mechanics-and-features title, no more, no less.
Features that modern, casual gamers are familiar with while cutting off all that belongs to the original title which make it stand above the mass.

They call the game remake but is more of an hybrid of SS1, SS2 and Bioshock thing of a mess, the man himself: Mr. Stephen "Reverse Midas" Kick clearly stated when asked about his vision of the game.

You can have a hint of that in the first page of the kickstarter campaign:
"General Features
→ A modern take on System Shock, a faithful reboot; it’s not Citadel Station as it was, but as you remember it. Many improvements, overhauls and changes are being implemented to capture the spirit of what the original game was trying to convey, and bring it to contemporary gamers.
→ Re-imagined enemies, weapons, and locations by original concept artist Robb Waters.
→ Terri Brosius reprises her role as SHODAN, and new VO will be recorded.
→ Brand new musical score composed by Jonathan Peros.
→ The user interface, game mechanics, enemies, and puzzles will be updated to reflect modern aesthetics and sensibilities, while maintaining the feel of the original."

(Sidenote: apparently " it’s not Citadel Station as it was, but as you remember it" is a quote from Warren Spector he tried to warn him about the traps of remaking such an iconic and influential game, but the message didn't get across, I guess).

Leaving aside the, surprisingly huge, amount of crap that lies in those few lines of text, I had the confirmation the game was going to just be a shadow of the original when He stated that the gameplay was going to feature vending machines, which are not in the original game clearly such a thing completely changes everything

Your point is spot on: System Shock 1 is such a unique game: it can be played all the way from an adventure to a mindless shooter, but that hasn't been the intent from the start.
To paint a picture with broad srokes: they wanted to make a game with the plot of System Shock 1, the inventory and interaction of System Shock 2 and the gameplay somewhere between the latter and Bioshock basically.

Remaking the game was never the idea, it was planned from the grounds up be a dumbed down title, to please modern and casual gamers, who can't understand and don't want to put effort in playing the original game but always seek instant reward.
They are going to love all the changes, additions and the cuts that will turn the remake into a soulless, generic title without what made System Shock 1 the timeless masterpiece it is.

What choice, do you mean the 0 (zero) settings option for Combat | Mission | Puzzle | Cyber? (see attached)
I wonder if a mod for System Shock Remake to force Combat settings set to 0 (zero) would rock your world.

I guess you wanted to have System Shock Enhanced Edition with current gen engine and no other changes.

I finished SS EE only once (and none for vanilla version), everything on max except for the Timer Limit (I think it was Combat - 4), and I checked every room I could find and eliminated every camera on all the levels, read / listen to everything I could and even helped SHODAN to launch nuclear missiles to destroy the Earth (an alternative ending?) just to check the option of course I would NEVER help SHODAN she is too cool.

But I couldn't help myself, the game was ahead of its time, true, but it worked so very slow on 486 CPUs and even on earlier Pentiums. I don't think it could have been better given the time, back then every game with 3D perspective and textures was a pain.
For some reason devs were too self-absorbed to allow the players to customize their keybinds, I can't stand a game with no option to rebind the keys.

And even then the game felt dull to me, it was like you meant - "a mindless shooter". So then I tried to switch Combat to 0 for the sake of exploring and puzzle solving. There was a lock puzzle and something else maybe, and those were just there as a nuissance even on 4 difficulty. The plot? Evil AI hijacked the station and created army of mutants and re-programmed robots, you created the monster and you are the only one who can stop it - Oh my, I hope Nightdive would not butcher such an original plot never before seen. Then the game was re-released on a CD-ROM with added speech and probably some hotfixes, yet no keyboard customization or other changes were recognized, and devs managed to record voiceovers but for the different text.

So the puzzles were too primitive and not fun for me, the plot was too original for my liking, what's left? Ah yes, the "repetitive 'Kill Everything That Moves'".

My point:
I played the original game back in late 1994 on original hardware and I think the game had a great potential but was too ambitious for the developments team to handle it properly. They should have postpone a release and work a bit more on UI and optimization but I understand that most of the times it's not an option for a small independent game studio constantly losing money between the ocassional game hit release.

@Judicat0r wrote:
They are going to love all the changes, additions and the cuts that will turn the remake into a soulless, generic title without what made System Shock 1 the timeless masterpiece it is.

But I can't see how System Shock 1 is the timeless masterpiece.
Thief: The Dark Project and System Shock 2 + Deus Ex 1 - no problem here. Played them all on release as well and they kicked in hard.

And it seems I was wrong, devs named their own System Shock Remake game a Reboot ;)