System Shock Remastered is going on hiatus, according to a report from Polygon. The remaster of the classic PC futurist RPG by industry icon Warren Spector had a successful Kickstarter campaign in July 2016, raising over $1.3 million from 21,000 backers. The project seemed to be progressing nicely enough given the steady stream of updates by Nightdive Studios. The team was remaking System Shock from the ground up. They were even receiving help from Fallout: New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity developer Obsidian Entertainment.
It’s Never Enough
Still, apparently none of this was enough. In a backer exclusive update partially published by Polygon, Nightdive CEO Stephen Kick told backers:
“I have put the team on a hiatus while we reassess our path so that we can return to our vision. We are taking a break, but not ending the project. System Shock is going to be completed and all of our promises fulfilled.”
According to an unnamed source speaking to Polygon, the game was a casualty of “mission creep” – the phenomenon in game development where developers keep adding more and more missions and gameplay mechanics to the point of outpacing their budget and schedule, and “unrealistic expectations.” Polygon also states that they spoke to Nightdive business developer Larry Kuperman who said the company failed to attract a publisher, and that 15 contract workers would be let go.
Kick on Kickstarter
Stephen Kick said in the backer update that feature creep was indeed the culprit for this hiatus:
“Maybe we lost our focus. The vision began to change. We moved from a Remaster to a completely new game. We […] strayed from the core concepts of the original title.
“As the budget grew, we began a long series of conversations with potential publishing partners. The more that we worked on the game, the more that we wanted to do, and the further we got from the original concepts that made System Shock so great.”
For more on how the game got to where it is now, check out the video above. If you enjoyed it, why not check out the Cliqist YouTube channel?
