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Tech

'System Shock,' the Cyberpunk Predecessor to 'BioShock,' Gets Remastered

The horrifying tale of an evil AI is back in higher resolution and with better controls and bug fixes.
Image: Night Dive Studios

System Shock, easily one the most influential first-person shooters ever made, is now more accessible than ever with a new "Enhanced Edition" sold through the digital game store GOG.com.

If you haven't played it, System Shock is known for combining first-person shooter and role-playing game elements, and open-ended environments where the player could use a number of tools to come up with a variety of solutions to any problem. Whereas, say, Doom just asked the player to go down a dark hallway and shoot monsters before they shot back, System Shock popularized the idea of "emergent gameplay," allowing players to choose how and what they wanted to do next.

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Warren Spector, a System Shock producer, went on to create the cyberpunk thriller Deus Ex, which followed the same model. Ken Levin, a designer on System Shock 2, similarly brought the same ideas to the BioShock series.

System Shock: Enhanced Edition supports resolutions up to 1024x768, which is much lower than what even the most modest modern computers are capable of today, but also a big improvement over the original's 640x480. It also supports a native 854x480 widescreen mode.

Here's what System Shock used to look like:

Image: Night Dive Studios

And here's what System Shock: Enhanced Edition looks like:

Image: Night Dive Studios

Another big improvement in this new edition, which also illustrates how different games were when System Shock was first released in 1994, is the addition of "mouselook," meaning the ability to look in any direction by moving your mouse. That wasn't a standard back then, but it's been added to System Shock: Enhanced Edition, along with an improved inventory and item management system, remappable keys, and various bug fixes.

Video: YouTube

Most importantly, there's just an easy way to buy an install System Shock now. You could always find the game files with a quick search and run them with an emulator like DOSBox, but unlike System Shock 2, there previously wasn't a place online where you could pay for a copy that's guaranteed to work.

System Shock: Enhanced Edition is developed by Night Dive Studios, which is currently in the business of resurrecting games that aren't easily available to buy online, like Turok: Dinosaur Hunter.

You can buy System Shock: Enhanced Edition from GOG.com.