Warren Spector, the legendary game creator behind Deus Ex and Epic Mickey, has heavily implied that System Shock 3 is no longer in development by OtherSide Entertainment. This isn’t terribly surprising given that OtherSide faced widespread layoffs in 2020, but the official gameplay trailer for System Shock 3 released in September 2019 was so enticing that fans had hoped that it was still somehow on the backburner. But from the looks of it, Spector and OtherSide are working hard at creating an original IP instead.
System Shock 3 might be canceled, Tencent takes over
Spector reiterates what happened with System Shock 3 these past few years and the ultimate acquisition of the franchise entirely in an interview with GamesBeat:
“We released a statement last year. There’s not much more to say at this point. Tencent is taking the franchise forward. It’ll be up to them to say what they want to say. There’s not much clarification I can give you.”
Back in May 2020, OtherSide Entertainment sent out a pair of tweets announcing that, in part because they’re just “a smaller Indie studio,” Tencent had effectively bought the rights to the System Shock franchise. This led to a slew of layoffs and company downsizing, which Spector calls “a period of personal recovery.”
Since then, with System Shock 3 seemingly canceled, Spector has moved on toward a new project, “an immersive sim under a new IP” which is slated to be for next-gen consoles and PC. In a piece of concept art for the new game of a whale in gold, somewhat tattered armor (pictured above), Spector says that the image “represents an aspect of what the game is about”:
“That’s an image that represents an aspect of what the game is about. It’s going to be a pretty deep game. There’s going to be a lot of variety in what you can do and what we ask you to do. That whale is part of that smorgasbord of game levels.”
In other news, Elden Ring has easily claimed the top spot in US sales for 2022 and 2K has described how its roster for WWE 2K22 was impacted by the massive layoffs at the WWE.
