System Shock 3 Is Officially Happening, Get Pumped

Otherside Entertainment has officially announced that System Shock 3 is on the way. The game is no where near complete and there have been no official announcements about the platforms that it will appear on or even what the game is about. However, the official teaser site now has a link to a sign-up page for the newsletter.

Last week Otherside Entertainment launched the teaser site, which had nothing more than scattered bits of letters on the screen. Gamers eventually dug into the code and recreated the image that revealed the System Shock 3 logo. A timer on the teaser site counted down to today, where it revealed a fractured image of SHODAN, an acronym for Sentient Hyper-Optimized Data Access Network; the character has been the main antagonist in the sci-fi shooter series and is set to return in System Shock 3.

The image doesn't really tell us much about the upcoming game, but there is a short 12 second audio clip on the website that features a quick ominous threat from SHODAN, where she simply states “Did you think I'd forgotten you...insect?”

It's been 16 years since the release of System Shock 2, so a lot of die-hard fans are pumped for the game. Casuals may be curious what all the noise is about in the core gaming communities, but with the remastered versions of the first two games released on Steam they have an opportunity to get pumped about the third game, too.

In System Shock 2 – a game that's over a decade old – players were facing off against SHODAN who needed the player's help to get off of a ship taken over by mutants. SHODAN masked its presence under the guise of another officer, pretending to be one of the good guys, while players completed tasks to make preparation for the rogue artificial intelligence to make its escape. There was a showdown at the end, and successful players destroyed SHODAN; but like all great villains the evil AI managed to escape. Otherside Entertainment will presumably pick the story up where System Shock 2 left off... based on the audio clip, anyway.

Blues picked up the official announcement from Otherside Entertainment, where they revealed that some of the key members from Looking Glass Studios – the development outlet responsible for the original System Shock games – will be returning to work on the game. That includes Paul Neurath and senior artist Nate Well. But there's no mention of masterminds Ken Levine and Warren Spector returning to work on the title. Levine is involved with his own upcoming project at his new Studio, and Spector is off doing his own thing.

The press release explains what the hold up was and why System Shock 3 hasn't been in development sooner. It's basically a case of the property being stuck in copyright hell. The trademarks managed to end up in the hands of Night Dive Studios, and Otherside had to work hard to get their hands on the intellectual property rights before they could make any official announcements.

After securing the trademark, getting the IP rights and finally gathering up the team, Otherside Entertainment was then able to officially announce the game. Unfortunately the game is only in the conceptual phase of development and they're a long ways off from actually releasing the title.

If you click through the website you'll be taken to a survey page where they ask some questions about which game systems you own and whether or not you're interested in virtual reality gaming. Many gamers presume that there will be a Kickstarter for System Shock 3 sometime later in 2016 but we can't know for sure. You'll just have to stay tuned in for more info.