I have to admire the exactness with which Nightdive Studios has recreated 1994’s System Shock in a more modern FPS framing. But I also can’t help but feel that, nearly 30 years later, it could have let a little bit of 2023 in. Visual upgrades aside, this new interpretation follows the original so exactly that I was able to use an original game door code from memory (not the 451 one, the one after), and much of the text and dialogue is word-for-word what went before. And, while that might sound impressively accurate, it does mean that although the visual jank of the 1990’s style flat sprite fake 3D and terrible controls have been replaced with a nice chunky neon sci-fi FPS refit, the three-decade-old design jank of obtuse objective signposting and minimal guidance remains.
