System Shock 2 is one of the most important video games of all time, and was a direct influence on the likes of Deus Ex and Bioshock. Fans of the game rejoiced when the System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition was announced last week by rights holders Nightdive Studios, who are responsible for many excellent remasters, including the first two Turok games, Blood, and the first System Shock. Now with the Enhanced Edition coming, Nightdive also suggests something even more exciting may happen: a System Shock 2 console release, for the first time.
This is according to an interview with Nightdive CEO Stephen Kick with GamesRadar, who talked a little about more of the specific features of the Enhanced Edition of System Shock 2, including the likelihood of it coming to consoles. While System Shock 2 is a hugely influential game, and was made by Irrational Games before the studio started working on the popular Bioshock, it has never been released on any consoles. This is partially down to rights issues, as it took Nightdive years to untangle them enough to own the brand.
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Apparently Nightdive is working on getting the UI to work with a gamepad, which it hasn’t had before either and is the first step at getting System Shock 2 on other platforms, although Stephen Kick admitted that the PC Enhanced Edition is the focus and console releases are still a long way off.
“We’re going to experiment with other platforms mostly to evaluate how the UI from [System Shock 2] would transition to a controller,” he explained, “but that doesn’t guarantee you’ll see [it] appear on console anytime soon.”
The current focus of Nightdive is in getting the co-op multiplayer to work and making sure all mods and fan missions are compatible. It seems likely that the System Shock 1 remake will probably make it to consoles before System Shock 2. Nevertheless, as long as it happens at some point and more Bioshock fans get to experience the game that inspired it, that will be good news.
