System Shock - Nightdive Studios QandA

Remove all ads!

A Nightdive Studios Q&A on N4G:

​

Nightdive Studios Q&A - Your questions answered

Nightdive Studios, developers of the System Shock remake, have answered your questions and here they are. Thank you all who participated as well as to Larry Kuperman from Nightdive Studios for taking the time to answer our questions.

How did you balance having to retain the original feel of System Shock with updated visuals?

Larry Kuperman: There were many challenges we faced when we decided to remake a 30 year old game and the art direction was perhaps one of the biggest. Fortunately we had one of the original artists, Robb Waters on board to help guide us through the process of translating the sprites and primitive 3D models of the classic game to the Unreal powered remake. The end result was a very unique aesthetic that paid homage to the technological limitations of the version from 1994, but featured the advancements in game art that had been made over the last 3 decades.

How important was it for you for parity between the PC and console versions of the game?

Kuperman: We wanted the versions of the game to be the exact same across all platforms and our team delivered highly optimized experiences that anyone playing on either a base PlayStation 4 or a high-end PC would thoroughly enjoy. It took a great deal of time and effort but it was worth it.

What was the most challenging aspect of bringing this game to console?

Kuperman: The controls. We're still tweaking the controls on console for future patches based on feedback, but System Shock is a very complex game that was built for mouse and keyboard. Translating that to a gamepad was an incredible challenge.

What's the biggest challenge a company like Nightdive Studio faces when they want to remaster cult classics like System Shock 2? 2. Out of all the classic game engines, they've worked on, which engine caused the most head scratches? We know they'll remaster both NOLFs ... the simple question here is: when?

Kuperman: The biggest challenge is usually finding the original source code, and if that's not available, reverse engineering the retail code of the game so it can be ported to our KEX engine. Specifically System Shock 2 has been an incredible challenge as the original code has eluded us. We've found pieces, but many of the games' libraries had to be reverse engineered which is one of the reasons the game has been in development for so long.

[...]