It's the latter fact that truly rankles fans: a great deal of work has been put into patching and updating the game, and while nobody would mistake it for a new release there's no denying the high-resolution patches released by the community put a sheen on the title that would attract new players - if only they could get their hands on a copy of the game without resorting to an eBay crap-shoot or piracy.Įnter Stephen Kick, the man behind indie development house Night Dive. With EA and the insurance companies refusing to get together and discuss some form of deal, it would be impossible for anyone to develop a direct sequel or even close spin-off of the series, and neither could anyone sell a repackaged version of the original two games. Without EA on-side, the series was going nowhere.Īs a result, System Shock has been in limbo for the last fourteen years. Theoretically, the two insurance companies could have jointly sold the rights on except for one little detail: while they held the rights to the games, publisher Electronic Arts held the rights to the System Shock trademark. When Looking Glass Studios shut down, the rights to the System Shock series went to two insurance companies, Meadowbrook Insurance and Star Insurance. The reason, as always, can be traced to lawyers. Excluding the BioShock series, which is merely a spiritual successor with a very different setting, there has been no System Shock title since 1999 - strange for a game that has an active and vocal fan base, even if some of those fans are arguably deluded. It's this dissolution of the company that has led to the absence of any follow-up titles.
Just one year after the launch, Looking Glass Studios would be dissolved. Mixing the action of a first-person shooter with role-playing elements including unlockable skills and psionic talents, an inventory with multiple customisable weapons and equipment options and research trees, the game was a hit - but not one that would save the company. System Shock 2, one of the most fondly-remembered role-playing shooters of the past few decades, is being reborn courtesy of Good Old Games and a fan who refused to take no for an answer.ĭeveloped by Irrational Games and Looking Glass Studios as a standalone sci-fi shooter, the game would be repurposed and given a new story as a direct sequel to the 1994 classic System Shock - without which classics including Deus Ex and the BioShock series would never have happened.
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