System Shock: Enhanced Edition

released on Sep 22, 2015

A remaster of System Shock

Exactly twenty one years after its first release, System Shock is back! The Enhanced Edition adds a modern touch to this true classic gem, without taking anything from its unmistakable atmosphere. See for yourself that the game that has been called the benchmark for intelligent first-person gaming, has lost nothing of its ability to keep you on the edge of your seat. You're a renowned hacker, the most notorious cyberspace thief in the corporate world. Caught during a risky break-in, you become indentured to Diego, a greedy Trioptium exec who bankrolls a rare cyberjack implant operation. After six months in a healing coma, you awaken to the twisted aftermath of a terrible disaster. Where are the surgeons? Why is the station in such disrepair? Slowly, the chilling realization that something is very wrong creeps over you. Once a prime corporate research facility, Citadel now teems with mindless cyborgs, robots and terribly mutated beings, all programmed to serve SHODAN, a ruthless A.I. There's scarcely time to think before it unleashes the first terror...


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i love how they used to do sci fi back in the day now its just simplicity but i dont want that i want 1 million cables and 36 different buttons just like in this game its so good to see creativity

Nice jump.

The main thing that sticks with me about this game is how much fun it is to have the game play tricks on you. For everything I’ve heard, SHODAN herself feels much less present through most of the game than I’d have expected, and while it makes the scenario feel a little less threatening than I’d imagined, it makes it much easier for her traps to actually work. It’s easy to forget about her while trudging through the labyrinthine Citadel Station in a way where her traps always manage to feel unexpected. And while I’m not good enough to have actually survived one of them (except the one I *did* anticipate because I’m just so smart), deaths are surprisingly non-punishing in this game, between the option to manually save anywhere on top of a really cool in-game checkpoint system. While SHODAN’s ‘jokes’ are always at your expense, it’s really hard not to laugh with her.

It’s also impressive how much it feels like an actual world. At the very least, it expects you to engage with it as if it is one - there’s a VERY funny little scene early on that you’ll probably hit if you’re a bit too trigger happy with stuff that you shouldn’t be pressing that drills the message in if you haven’t learned it yet. It’s not particularly obtuse in what it expects from you progression-wise - getting clearance for all the doors in the station and figuring out what the hell SHODAN’s up to - which means it doesn’t overcomplicate itself to be more than what it needs to be. There’s even a difficulty option that adds a timer to the game, which makes complete sense with the story (and sounds really fun to boot!).

It’s a bit rough round the edges, and I had my fair share of bruteforcing through certain sections and getting lost from missing very specific details, but it’s great - basically a crusty dungeon crawler wearing the skin of an FPS. It’s the sort of game where I know it’d have been incredibly formative if I played it as a kid. I’ve already got two more playthroughs planned (one with the timer, and one with classic controls - Enhanced lets you drop the graphing calculator control scheme and actually use the mouse to move the camera like a normal person). Glad I finally got around to it, and I’m super stoked to get to the games it inspired.

The most shocking thing about System Shock is just how vibrant and original it feels to this day. (And, to be clear, I’m talking about the original, not the recently released remake.) The world feels angular and dangerous. The music wavers between driving and ominous. SHODAN always keeps you guessing. The controls took some time to adjust to, but once I overcame that barrier I was in – completely immersed.

One notably aspect of System Shock is the lack of a big narrative twist. Immersive sims love to hit the player with Christopher Nolan-like reveals but System Shock never even dips a toe into this sort of narrative trickery. It’s just hacker versus SHODAN, man versus machine. It whole game plays out like a chess match – you can see all the pieces from the start but you don’t know where they’ll end up. Make a move and SHODAN will respond in turn. It’s an experience that feels pure in both intention and execution in a way that later Shock-likes don’t.

Yet despite the absence of twists there are still plenty of truly revelatory moments. Although Citadel Station seems like a run-of-the-mill Blade Runner-inspired set piece at first, as you climb higher the areas you explore grow more varied. For me, the biggest jaw-dropping moment came when I entered Alpha Grove. The foreboding music and vivid green palette are a completely departure from previous areas, and yet they make perfect sense in context. Interestingly, I think the low fidelity of the graphics (by modern standards) actually made my excursion into the grove more shocking. The sudden change in color palette is jarring precisely because the color choices are so limited. Other games have used the “jungle within a machine” trope, but none have executed it this level of flair.

Although not every area is as visually stunning as the groves, they all speak to the developers’ attention to detail. Every corridor leads to an interesting destination and every room serves a purpose. Paintings on the walls make the offices feel like real spaces and make the boardrooms feel like they were painstakingly decorated by corporate bigwigs. Crawling through Citadel Station is like exploring a large-scale version of the ISS or Mir. There’s also no shortage of interesting weapons and items to find. Though the progression from the hapless dart gun to the flesh-shredding power of the Skorpion is clearly a result of game design rather than a natural feature of a space station, it also aligns neatly with the game’s internal logic. After all, SHODAN is always throwing bigger and bigger baddies at you; it only makes sense that you can salvage increasingly more-powerful weapons from their remains.

And I can’t shower enough praise on SHODAN. She absolutely steals the show. Every time you reclaim an inch, SHODAN blasts you with an email, telling you to check yourself before you wreck yourself. She is cunning. She is relentless. And she is coming for you, little hacker. She is the dungeon master of this whole adventure and she performs wonderfully.

Her minions, on the other hand, aren’t quite as impressive. Enemy variety is one of the few areas in which System Shock is objectively below par. Enemy AI is non-existent – they all either stand in place or beeline towards you – and they the only differences between opponents is how hard they hit and how much of a beating they can take. No matter who or what you’re fighting, the strategy remains the same – peek around a corner, fire a shot or two, and take cover. Rinse and repeat until victory is yours. Despite this, combat is relatively satisfying, and the heavy reliance on cover does reinforce that you’re an interloper sneaking around a space station where you don’t belong.

Cyberspace is another area that hasn’t aged particularly well. On the one hand, it’s a creative interpretation of the vision William Gibson laid out for cyberspace in his novel, Neuromancer. Bumping into ICE and fighting off fire-spitting vector-graphic heads plays out like a Gibson-esque fantasy, and yet at the same time the whole concept feels entirely anachronistic. By the time of System Shock’s release in 1994, it would’ve been clear to developers and gamers alike that Neuromancer’s depiction of cyberspace was fantastic at best and wondrously silly at worst. Why waste time flying around an artificial space when you can just click a button or enter a line of code? (Then again, it’s nearly 2024 and apparently Apple and Meta still haven’t learned this lesson. See: Apple Vision Pro and the Metaverse.)

And yet as we enter 2024, it’s SHODAN, the AI-driven goddess of destruction, who feels more relevant than ever. She has perfect grammar and speaks eloquently; she also has access to boundless knowledge and experiences digital hallucinations. Does any of that sound familiar? Thanks to the SHODAN’s pitch-perfect performance and the awe-inspiring environment of Citadel Station, System Shock, despite its dated graphics and controls, remains absolutely worth a play today.

The controls take some getting used to and you really should set a designated reload button in the controls yourself, as there isn't one by default. And definitely turn the giant distracting HUD off as soon as possible.
Some parts of the game were better than others. I thought the later levels were way better than the first 3 or so. Level 3, especially, I hated that floor. And maybe I didn't really enjoy the first two levels that much because I was still figuring out the game back then. I didn't care much for the R floor either.
Cyberspace sections did nothing for me.
I thought the plot was interesting and SHODAN was a good villain. I expected a little more of SHODAN right at the end though but it all ends pretty abruptly.
The soundtrack was pretty hit or miss for me. Some tracks straight up hurt my ears but others were pretty catchy. It also didn't help that the first track you hear in the game, that of Level 1, is one of the worst tracks I have ever listened to in a game.
As for the gameplay, well, the game is almost 30 years old, so the gameplay is going to feel dated. But I was pretty surprised at how 'modern' the game design was. The shooting was alright although fights usually boiled down to either killing enemies so fast with a very strong weapon so that they don't have time to react or positioning yourself in such a way that you can just barely shoot an enemy from around a corner or shooting enemies at maximum distance. If you don't do any of those things then you're going to get hit and you're going to get hit hard.
Another thing is that resources placement wasn't properly balanced. Oftentimes I had to survive for like two full floors without barely receiving any health and battery resources but then for the last two levels, 8 and 9, you get so many full heal items that it's ridiculous.
Overall, a pretty fun game.

System Shock has a reputation for being incredibly awkward to control and sticking the player in labyrinthine levels that are impossible to get your bearings in. A lot of people have probably passed over this game because of this reputation. Most of this review will consist of arguments for why people shouldn’t be afraid to play this game.

Contrary to what I expected System Shock Enhanced Edition was actually a pretty accessible game to pick up and learn. The enhanced controls aren’t particularly clunky or hard to get used to due to the addition of optional mouse look. The biggest hurdle to getting started is learning how to navigate the UI which definitely can be overwhelming at first.

The levels, while sprawling and maze-like are actually pretty easy to navigate. The artists and level designers did an amazing job at making the different areas of each level look and feel distinct. I was also expecting the levels to consist entirely of winding and claustrophobic corridors, but they’re actually surprisingly open and at times highly vertical. Playing this game really does feel like being in an actual space station as opposed to navigating a labyrinthine 1st person dungeon crawler, which is more of what I was expecting.

System Shock rarely makes you feel like a rat hopelessly trapped in a maze. It’s very possible to find your way around through visual recognition alone in all but one level IMO. The fact that you have an auto mapper readily available makes navigation surprisingly intuitive and rarely frustrating.

There’s a lot to love about System Shock. Combat and exploration are fun and rewarding, SHODAN is a really engaging and well written villain, and figuring out how to progress the plot is a fun challenge for the player to puzzle out. I won’t go into any more detail about these qualities of the game and instead let people who want to play System Shock discover that for themselves.

I decided to play System Shock mainly for its historical value. This is a massively influential game and one that despite looking and feeling dated in various ways was decidedly ahead of its time. When I actually started playing the game, however, I was pleasantly surprised by how well it holds up and how easy it was to get into. If you have even the slightest curiosity in this game I’d highly recommend giving the enhanced edition a shot.

N.B - Purchasing the Enhanced Edition on steam also includes a copy of classic System Shock, so if you decide you want to have the old school using a graphing calculator to control a tank experience that’s a possibility as well and seems like a very rewarding control scheme to master.








You HAVE to play System Shock, it's such a good experience when you end up having to manage your ammo and your weapons depending on the situations and thinking of what to come .

Fighting follow this ressource management idea, as you'll have to approach each enemy carefully, peaking around corners trying to bait the AI when it comes to tougher enemies that would obliterate you otherwise.
The moments when you're low on health and ammo and you come across an elite enemy are when the game shine, having you engage in all its mechanics to succeed.
Even as of today and with the free look added, System Shock is a fun game to play and didn't lose a bit of its glory.

If you're looking to play a game that'll make you go " Oh, so that's where this comes from ", play it and if you want to play a great game, play it.

The OST will grow on you, trust me.