The System Shock remake is (hopefully) finally coming on May 30th

The long, long-awaited System Shock remake has gotten a firm release date: May 30th. Developer Nightdive Studios announced the news this morning, confirming the game will arrive on PC through Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store. Following its launch there, it will come to PlayStation 4 and 5 as well as Xbox One and Series X and S “in due course.”

The System Shock remake was announced back in 2015, soon after developer Nightdive tracked down the elusive rights to the classic cyberpunk horror series. The game hit a hard speedbump in 2018 and was put on hiatus, but it was resurrected, and we’ve gotten incremental updates over the past few years, most recently a surprise demo in February. The game was given a March release window with no precise date earlier this year, but that slipped a little — “we are after all merely human (unlike Shodan!),” Nightdive acknowledged in today’s announcement.

I’ve sadly been putting off the System Shock remake demo, an error I’ll have to correct soon. Based on Ars Technica’s impressions, it fulfills Nightdive’s mission of making a brilliant shooter with a notoriously complicated interface more approachable, but it left some clunky gameplay elements (including melee combat) remaining — an issue I had with a far earlier demo around 2020. It’s got a glossier look than the original 1994 game but one that’s still somewhat retro; it looks, if anything, a bit like a hypersaturated version of the 2000 sequel System Shock 2. While there are apparently new enemies and a new hacking system, the game isn’t supposed to depart too far from its original plot and setting.

It’s always possible we’ll get another delay for System Shock, but this is the firmest date we’ve gotten so far for the remake. And it’s far more alive than the sequel that was effectively canceled in 2019. I’m cautiously optimistic that I’ll get to take another run at defeating SHODAN later this year.