Nightdive Studios previews its final environmental art for System Shock remake

Last year, Kickstarter backers of Nightdive Studios’ System Shock remake received a range of new screenshots, showcasing in-game environments using the original textures. Things have progressed quite a bit since then according to a new preview, as the developer tours the eerie space station to reveal its final art.

Despite being crowdfunded in 2016, development on the System Shock remake hasn’t been the easiest for Nightdive Studios. An ever-increasing amount of planned features sent the game back to the drawing board at the beginning of last year, with a new team formed to tackle the ambitious project in March.

Various environmental screenshots were released just four months later, with Nightdive using textures from Looking Glass Technologies’ original 1994 game to help backers better visualise the product. Looking through the eyes of our nameless hacker, the “Final Art KS Preview” uploaded last week shows just how far development has come, with newly updated, crisper textures.

The two-minute update shows that Nightdive is trying to capture the same isolated atmosphere, trapping the protagonist in tight corridor-based gameplay that’s almost claustrophobic. The sound design is also quite exquisite from what we can gather, from the light footsteps to the sharper hydraulics of opening and closing doors. Although there are no enemies to pose a threat in this pre-alpha footage, the remake is at least shaping up to be on par with modern hits such as Alien: Isolation if not the original itself.

Currently, the developer seems to be on schedule with its current roadmap, aiming for a release sometime in 2020.

KitGuru Says: I missed the 25-year-old sci-fi horror the first time around, and I'm excited to eventually get my hands on it. I do wonder just how many people are going to consider this a BioShock rip-off without realising that it inspired the spiritual successor, though. Are you looking forward to the System Shock remake?

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