The remake of System Shock has arrived on the market after a long and troubled development, which lasted more than seven years. Stephen Kick, the head of Nightdive Studios, revealed in issue 386 of Edge magazine why it was so complicated to get to launch it. Basically campaign money Kickstarters from which it all started they ran out after the first year and the project was almost cancelledin order not to risk bankrupting the software house.
But how was the money spent? Basically, once the Kickstarter campaign has successfully concluded, Nightdive entrusted the game to a team of expert developers, with considerable portfolios, who however hadn’t done much after a year, apart from some conceptual artwork and levels still made up of gray blocks (this is the sketch phase of the structure of the same, let’s call it so for convenience).
Nightdive then decided to move the development in-house, but having run out of funds, had to go looking for a publisher to carry it forward. He met twelve of them, but only got refusals. The remake of System Shock was saved by the various remastering works carried out by Nightdive over the years, which allowed him to finance the development of the game, while causing many sleepless nights for poor Kick, who had to think of a way to carry it forward, ending up doing from game director since he could not find other people suitable for the role.
In short, all’s well that ends well, even if many years late.
If you want more information on the game, read our review of System Shock, currently available for PC.
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