In a new Kickstarter Q&A, Nightdive Studios’ community manager Karlee Meow revealed some new information about the upcoming remake of System Shock. According to Karlee, the switch from Unity to Unreal Engine 4 was made because Unreal is a more efficient engine.
As Karlee said:
“Unity is a great engine, as is Unreal. When we started researching engines, Unreal ultimately was the best fit for the content we wanted to make. The team found we were able to get the content into the engine with the visual fidelity and target performance more easily. Basically, for our team and project, Unreal will enable us to be more efficient and aligns better with our goals. Another big draw was its console performance.”
Karlee reiterated that Nightdive Studios is making a PC-game first and that PC is the main target for everything Nightdive Studios does regarding System Shock. However, Unreal Engine 4 also performs better on the PC than Unity Engine, so this engine switch makes sense even for its PC version.
Karlee also talked a bit about the concept of System Shock, and whether it would be a straight forward remake of it. And unfortunately, this System Shock remake won’t be what was initially advertised.
When its Kickstarter campaign was launched, Nightdive Studios claimed that this would be a 1:1 remake of System Shock. However, the team has discarded these ideas and will introduce some changes to the game’s story and level design.
As Karlee explained:
“Early in development, we started meeting with those former LGS guys and started asking the question “What would you do differently with today’s technology?” The answers were overwhelming. I think the funniest answer was “Less grenade types for sure”. At that point we realized this needed to be a reboot, but maintain the spirit of Shock 1. Whenever we look at the design, or art, or audio even, we ask ourselves “What would LGS do?”. The answer becomes clear after understanding LGS was about innovation, trying new things and bringing together concepts unheard of in games before them. We see ourselves as maintaining that tradition, and chat with the LGS guys to ensure what we’re doing holds up to their expectations. The mutant frozen shatter stuff is a good example of that.
So what’s different? We’re changing very little of the story other than refining the dialogue and plugging plot holes. Gameplay will be different, but more of an evolution of the original to get combat feeling more reactive and systems with an expected level of depth. Again, a lot of these changes come down to understanding what LGS would do if they were making Shock 1 anew today.
Levels will harken back to the original game thematically, but the layout will see a pretty big change to apply modern level design principles for pacing and exploration. We’re not going to dumb things down, but we also don’t want to ignore the last 20 years of progress level design has made.”
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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“modern level design”
Translation: straight hallways with the dumbest AI they can do, because console players…
oh man what an original and unpredictable response, totally didn’t see this coming
lol and how else would you interpret level ‘modern level design’, and in a way in which it would be superior to the original game?
how about free-roaming for example? Or something along the lines of Dark Souls. What’s the point of huge mazes if you can’t keep up with the art department i.e same rooms over and over.
SS1 had plenty of cosmetic variation in its original levels. And Nightdive isn’t just adding free-roam to the SS1 levels. They are ‘modernizing’ and ‘streamlining’ for people who couldn’t navigate out of a paper bag without a magical quest compass.
Consoles existed back then too . That didnt stop developers from making games more hard and complex. The reason they are making them so easy nowdays is because they believe that they will sell more than if they make them hard. I didnt play the original because i got my first pc in 1996 and if itry it now it will look terrible on my pc due to the very low resolutions the game supports(only up to 640×480)
But most of the FPS were developed with one platform in mind (PC, PSX, N64) and some ports (PC to console) changed some levels and/or enemies to adapt the game to the controller. But nobody do that now, everybody only can “enjoy” the dumbed down version of FPSs
Maybe it was cheaper to make three different games of the same title in that time(like Quake 2 PC, PSX and N64 versions)? Just a theory.
Maybe back in the day publishers didn’t spend millions in marketing and lies, like they do now.
My point still stands :^0
Not at all, developers use the “latest technology” available at that time and it tends to be cheaper and cheaper. Marketing is always expensive back in the 80-90s there were no twitter, faceboock, internet… were they now spend millions
Yeah so they waste millions of dollars that could be used to make different games to different consoles and prevent downgrading, but at the end of the day game development in AAA is more expensive than yesterday. But hey, it’s their money…
Yes, obviously consoles existed back then, we’re talking SNES era, pre PS1. And they were great because they were limited to the genres those consoles were made to play (platformers, fighting, racing and sports games). Everything went to sh*t when technology advanced and console makers (Microsoft-Sony) tried to adapt complex FPS and RPGs to work on the dumboxes.
That’s what ‘streamlined’ and ‘modern’ means today.
What if they mean System Shock 2 modern instead of COD modern?
1- It’s System Shock (the first one)
2- They are aiming to consoles, so it’s the only way to make a multiplatform shooter, straight hallways, dumb AIs…
“They are aiming to consoles,”
They did say pc game first.
Heard that before.
Don’t really recall the last time that worked out too well, though.
Sadly.
Anything but lies. The game will be available to consoles and that affects the level design
That would be strawmodern level design. People masturbate towards old level design (mazes with the same tileset) way too much, it’s almost like an overreaction.
Never played Doom, Thief or Deus Ex, did you?
Played all of them, but why put Doom along the likes of Thief or Deus Ex, which has superior level design and art direction?
Because it is a different set of design my dear.
Enemy, weapons, items and powerup placements, pacing and so on and so fort. Doom excels in those.
So in order to put Doom along masterpieces like Deus Ex or Thief, you have to invent some apples vs oranges excuse? Sorry, Doom is inferior, but at least it has the excuse of being older than Desu Ex and Thief.
*facepalm*
The point is that Doom, for its time (1993), had pretty good level desing, also Thief (1998) and Deus Ex (2000)
So how the hell do Doom, Thief and Deus Ex (“old level design”) levels translate to, quote: “mazes with the same tileset”?
I think we should ask Square Peggings. After all, they’re the ones who gave us that delightful Thi4f reboot, & the Deus Ex Prequel/Sequel/Reboot combo-pack.
“So how the hell do Doom, Thief and Deus Ex (“old level design”) levels translate to, quote: “mazes with the same tileset”?”
Only the likes of Doom, Wolfenstein, Noah’s ark,etc. Thief and Deus Ex are more in line with Half-Life albeit less linear.
You are focusing on graphics and we’re not talking about that, we’re discussing LEVEL DESIGN.
Also, if you actually played Doom and you put it alongside Wolf3D and Noah’s Ark (either for its graphics or for level design) you must have a really, really bad memory.
The reason levels like Deus Ex’s Liberty Island or Thief’s The Sword are better than Doom’s E1M1 is not just level layout, but actual graphics and art direction. Level layout is just a part of Level design, if Doom Graphics where wireframe, it would be even worse.
Wolf 3D and Noah’s Ark is worse than Doom, that was hiperbole on my part.
Okay, first of all;
– People are comparing a game from 1994, to a game from 1999. The difference is only five years, sure, but the difference is massive.
– People are comparing an FPS which barely has a story to it, to an RPG that’s famed for its story, amongst other things.
Ergo, one game’s environments were designed around being shootfests, whereas the other’s were designed for exploration – of a different sort than the one DOOM features.
Yes, DOOM looks ugly, so what? The environments are still solid, even today, & that’s the most important thing. Besides, you can always mod them to look better, if you really want to.
“- People are comparing a game from 1994, to a game from 1999. The difference is only five years, sure, but the difference is massive.”
It’s an unfair comparison, but the world is unfair and if people(ie Doom hipsters) really thinks Doom is the pinnacle of the FPS genre then they should stop complaining about the state of modern FPS and spend the rest of their days playing Doom WADs(there are enough Wads for a lifetime after all).
“- People are comparing an FPS which barely has a story to it, to an RPG that’s famed for its story, amongst other things.”
As a rule of thumb, if a game have more features, it will probably be better than a game with less features, there is a reason free roaming games are the most popular genre at the moment. Doom only have shooting going on for it, while Deus Ex have exploration, shotting and good story.
Okay, so (by the way, I edited the original post, since I got the dates wrong (f*ck me, too much weed lately, my bad) the difference is 7 years, which is basically an entire console generation apart, in terms of the technology available to developers at the time. It’s also worth noting, DOOM’s colour palette, as limited as it appears today, was actually quite revolutionary technology at the time. id had to make do with what they had when they created DOOM & basically introduced the entire world to the FPS genre with it (Wolfenstein actually created the ’90s FPS genre, but Wolfy never got very far at the time), whereas Ion Storm entered the FPS several years after all of that);
DOOM is DOOM. There have been a lot of clones over time, yes, but nevertheless, DOOM is still routinely placed amongst the best games of all time with good reason. That’s not to say it’s “the greatest thing ever, hands down” (personally I prefer Quake, for example, though DOOM is a close second to it), but even so, since the original conversation was about the alleged dumbing down of the level design, let’s focus on addressing that;
Yes, DOOM had some seriously crazy level designs, & so did Deus Ex, perhaps even exaggeratedly so in the latter’s case, but the problem remains that modern level design doesn’t even begin to compare to that. As such, if, by some chance, the developers can actually improve upon System Shock’s level design in a way that doesn’t feel like they’re purposefully dumbing the game down in order to make it console-friendly, or mainstream-friendly, or some other such bullsh*t, then at that point, I’ll concede that I was wrong in worrying, but unfortunately, history has proven such claims wrong time & time again, no matter what or who the developers behind them are, so to quote durka durka, I’m going with “buy salt” (by the tonne) on this one, for the foreseeable future.
The fact that they’re actually referring to this as a reboot, rather than a remake, is another reason to worry, in my opinion, since it means they’re no longer squarely focused on faithfully reproducing (even if, slightly improving) the original, but rather, upon actually “remaking” the game itself, the way the video game industry & Hollywood both routinely reboot classic IP’s into tired f*cking jokes that nobody ever wanted, or even asked for in the first place.
As for your DOOM vs. Deus Ex comparison in the last paragraph; again, different games, different styles, different appeals, different demographics, & most importantly, they were made in different f*cking eras. DOOM came first, & did its thing as best as it could. Its sequels alternated on the established model in various ways, some good, some bad, until id pinnacled (arguably) with Quake 3. Ion Storm, on the other hand, skipped the “old school” shooter & went straight to the predecessor of the modern shooter, with a side of stealth, & RPG elements, both. Not to mention an actual story.
Comparing the two is absurd, as they’re patently different things, made in different time periods, using completely different technology, & completely different mindsets. You might as well grab a car from 1917 & compare it to its 1957 counterpart, right alongside its 2017 counterpart “because they have the same name.” Yeah, sure, so what?
P.S. “More features” doesn’t necessarily = “better game” anymore. Yes, historically it’s been so, as “more depth” = “better game” & so on & so forth, but today, for most people, less is actually more, as when developers overreach today (which occurs quite often, sadly), instead of ending up with a very deep game, we instead end up with a very shallow game, riddled with half-baked systems that never got finished because they ran out of time.
The reason “free roaming” games are hot right now is because publishers are overhyping them to sh*t, as they try to make this generation all about “open world (not really)” games, much like the last generation was all about linear, brown-&-grey Call of Duty ripoff shooters. This fad will, in turn, pass, however, as publishers will inevitably continue to degrade the so-called “open world” experience further & further. That, & market oversaturation, of course. After all, you can always count on an idiot AAA publisher to follow the trends (see: Virtual Reality, Kinect, bla bla bla, bla bla bla, bla bla bla).
F*cking hell, I’ve read all that. :V
“You might as well grab a car from 1917 & compare it to its 1957 counterpart, right alongside its 2017 counterpart “because they have the same name.” Yeah, sure, so what?”
The 1957 version is the better one if you are a political dissident, because the 2017 version of the car can be hacked by the CIA to make sure you die in a crash.
Good point ^^
So following your reasoning, Call of Duty Infinite Warfare has better ‘level design’ than Deus Ex because it has better graphics and art direction?
Hint: Level design does not mean ‘actual graphics and art direction’. Textures and effects are thrown in after the level design (layout) is complete. You can have the exact same level design with graphics from Wolf3D or Battlefield 4, get it?
Level design is the layout itself (single corridor like CoD or multiple approaches like Deus Ex, Thief) and the interactivity said level has with the player.
“So following your reasoning, Call of Duty Infinite Warfare has better ‘level design’ than Deus Ex because it has better graphics and art direction?”
Well at least they got 50% of the work right, i dunno about the level layout in the latest COD. Linear games can have good level design as well, see Half Life as proof.
But really, how many games today disappoint us with taking the accomplishments away from the players and replacing challenges with easy scripted actions? How many of them have simplistic levels with highlighted objects so you can’t get lost, looking more like movie sets than real places?
There are lot of reasons to be concerned if a studio announces it will hold to “modern level design principles”.
Those are valid points, but that doesn’t mean we should return to the old tropes in 90’s fps like key hunting, repetitive tilesets and worst of all, crappy graphics.
Your main worry here seems to be graphics, which wouldn’t happen nowadays. We’re talking about level design, not graphics.
I didn’t mean technical things like graphics or tilesets. Only level design.
And yes, we only should take the best elements from old games.
Like i said, i want to hope they mean that they will make the levels less identical corridor mazes, but “hoping” with game industry is a bad idea.
Lovely. -_-
Usually, I would rage and throw tantrums. But at this point I can’t care. If you can’t give me my game *worlds* with coherence and meaning I will look elsewhere. It’s a shame you have to tarnish the name of one of the first and best 3d metroidvanias ever created with your *modernization*.
Since when System Schock 1 is a 3d metroidvania? I have only see that concept applied to games like Dark Souls series.
It is though.
Does the player aquire new powerups to explore inacessible areas?
Yes.
Also, this reductive argument that Metroidvania is about “powerups to unlock inaccessible areas” leaves out the the best part that is maps/mazes with interconnected levels and little to none explicit objectives or directions, driven almost solely by player exploration.
On the downside, more padding and backtracking if done wrong.
But we’re talking about good games not “ifs”.
You are right, even the best metroidvania have those issues, but i don’t mind it that much unless it is something like hunting for colored keys/skulls in some Doom levels.
yes
“Since when System Schock 1 is a 3d metroidvania?”
Well it is to a certain extent.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/61ea0b1b519def6b5c9114115b1a69015421ca9bc531e3dff226b0eb134a64db.jpg
I want to be optimistic, but oh dear…
Keeping a positive outlook on it for now. I will say the temptation to dumb a game down to scoop up the casual gamer dollars is ever present and money talks. We’ll see.
So, now it’s on Unreal 4, & it’s no longer a remake, it’s a reboot?
http://www.fh.net/.images/atgaf.gif
Good luck wit this sh*t, & adios any thought of pre-purchasing based on epic Unity Demo.
Most “level design principles for pacing and exploration” are made to be idiot-proof.
But screw it, most gamers are braindead anyway. Just the simple fact that there are people who think The Order 1886 is gaming evolution makes my head spin. I mean, I saw this comment on a Gamespot review. Look at the comment… now look at his channel. I’m scared for the future. 🙁 https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/22fb6bcf88daf610adc6c63a4b35223b9b53496a9b332f9caa62ec3c97ec0899.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f7b4e3bcdee7c8f17fe83f3b048095be45a58458942f47d572aed637c559bdf0.png
Is he brazilian? lol, remember kids, race mixing lowers the IQ.
That looks like the Romanian alphabet to me, actually. Portuguese uses the standard Latin Alphabet, unlike French, Italian & Spanish which all use accentuations, but that’s none of those, leaving only Romanian 😛
Granted, the written similarities between Italian & Romanian did have me thinking Italian for a second, before I noticed the other words….. Lol ^^
Godamn Gypsies :^). But they don’t speak portuguese do they?
Who, Romanians? No, they speak a Balkans-influenced version of Vulgar Latin (which is the basis for all modern Romance (read: Latin-influenced) languages), which oddly enough is closer to Modern Italian than any of the other Romance languages.
Weird, huh.
What are you dipsh*ts up to with the Brazilian nonsense?
?_?
Oh, that’s right…..
Say, dumbf*ck, how different is Portuguese to Brazilian? Like Mexican & Spanish, or what? O.o
Well f*ckstick, yes, it is more or less like that.
The Portuguese in Portugal for example can be quite different in things like words, expressions or accent, than the Brazilian Portuguese or any other Portuguese speaking country.
Great.
Oh, &, uh, don’t forget to kiss my *ss, 7cmDick.
Will do as soon as you get rid of that stalker that is stuck in there. ;D
What, & wipe my own *ss? Who do you think I am!
(Coming to America reference) (ever seen that one?)
HOLY GUACAMOLE! That is one hell of a reference to pull out of your *ss!
Did it hurt? 😀
(sh*t now I’m off to a Eddie Murphy movie binge watch, thanks!)
I don’t know, I’ll have to ask my stalkers…….. O.o
(VENGEANCE, B!TCH)
(Damn, I really have to lay off the weed, now I’m even getting video game dates wrong……. seriously f*cking awkward >.<)
Getting old does that aswell, soon enough you’ll be wearing diapers too. 😛
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Speak for yourself! I’m going to achieve singularity & ascend to the newly-created position of Supreme Commander Admiral General God Emperor of the Universe 😛
So I guess we’re out to make some special diapers for that, oh mighty overlord!
😛
Lol’d.
I’m actually Romanian :3. What can I say, my country is weird.
Also the channel I mentioned is from Brazil.
O.o Wait, what? That’s Portuguese?
OI SEVENTH.
Oh sh*t, that is Portuguese.
Damn, my bad. Now that I actually opened the f*cking image, I saw it.
Y’know, the totally obvious.
…….
>.<
Yeah, Romania. The only latin country in a sea of slavic countries. I’ll give the most short summary of this weird country as best as I can.
I’m NOT the most knowledgeable when it comes to my own country’s history, but basically, we originate from Dacia (a long forgotten nomad populace established in what was known as Valahia). The Roman Empire took over Dacia after centuries worth of wars… Romans colonized the place… and after almost a millenium of colonization (and also during the time when The Roman Empire fell, leaving the colonists stranded there)… we came to be.
Fast forward during the medieval age, there where 3 regions, Valahia, Moldavia and Transilvania. Lots of wars trying to defend the lands from Ottomans, Barbarians, Habsburgic Empire, everyone wanted a piece of that land. In 1600 all those lands we’re united for a little while, before splitting again. Then the fanariot dominance came in 1711 up to 1821 (we’ve been trying to defend our lands for 3/4 of a millenium…).
In 1859 Valahia united with Moldavia after a revolution. Then what was left united with Transilvania in 1918 forming Romania. After the 2nd world war, we lost a part of Moldavia (known as Basarabia) to the Russians, forming what is known today as Republic of Moldavia. Also from 1859 to the present we went from monarchy to communism to democracy… Yeah. And our economy today is kinda $hit…
I don’t know, did you like this very summarized version of what the heck Romania is? Trust me, I wasn’t quite fond of history classes, not because they were boring, but because our teachers were outright terrible. Every single history teacher sucked every enjoyment you could get from history class.
Well, from what I know, for a summarised version of a country’s history, it’s pretty good, yeah 😛
Though that is going on what I know, so, 😛 Good point on Dacia, though.
Just one thing; I think you meant Medieval Valachia, Moldova & Bessarabia, since Transylvania was part of Hungary since 1000 AD, or some such (too lazy to look it up). Unless you meant Pre-1000 AD Transylvania.
Yes I meant pre 1000 AD Transilvania. I know they were under Austro-Hungarian occupation for a very long time up until 1918. Point is, they are still part of Romania :3.
Also sorry if I’m butchering some names in English (i.e Moldova in my own native language, but in English some say it’s Moldavia, I don’t even know… or Transilvania, Valahia, etc.). Never actually used these landmarks in English.
Transylvania, Wallachia, Moldavia, Moldova, Bessarabia 😛 Moldova being the country, & Moldavia the region. Though, the Budjak region in Ukraine is still unofficially referred to as Bessarabia sometimes as well, for that matter.
You can find out by putting his channel link on socialblade
#Effort.
Just speak from the soul, mate.
And if you’re wrong, just pull a politician act & pretend like you did the right thing, anyway ^^
Games are all about interaction. Take it away and you got a movie. So there’s kinda no point in playing such barely interactive titles if you can just watch them.
There are of course many clickbait youtubers like this, revered by brainwashed kids. Disregard them.
Is this guy even a player?
His videos scream SJW gender dysphoria.
Tell him to jump on a cactus on my behalf.
Now on topic, system shock 1 has maze like levels, no not like system shock 2, i am talking about gigantic mazes that get old really quick, if they streamline them down a bit i dont mind, but for the love of god dont make it a linear game.
The original system shock had huge changes depending the difficulity, we talking about not having to do certain objectives or given the passwords earlier.
That wll be hard to do with modern “mindset” but i can always hope.
I played the game’s demo. It was the exact copy of some level from the original, right? I liked it. If they are gonna change it to something typically modern (like primitive corridor shooters), it’ll be a big shame.
As someone who recently played through the original, this is very much a fortunate development. The game has some of the most confusing level design I’ve ever seen. It’s supposed to be a space station, but it’s more like a space station themed labyrinth. That, and the UI is awful. If it weren’t for the gripping story I would have put it down.
I look forward to the updates.
In NightDive I trust 100%. They will deliver, no worries from me.
I’m hoping you’re right and we’re all wrong and overreacting, I really do!
*crossing all fingers possible*
Be sure to check out around 6:00 when he describes System Shock 1’s level design and how Nightdive is gonna f’ it up.