Video game documentary studio Noclip recently sat down with Nightdive Studios CEO Stephen Kick to discuss “The Struggles Behind Bringing Back System Shock”. Kick and Noclip founder Danny O’Dwyer talk about how the idea to reboot System Shock developed, and the multiple complications Nightdive has had to overcome so far during the process.
Noclip Media was launched in 2016 for the specific purpose of creating video game documentaries, chronicling the interactive video entertainment platform along with the games and game makers who have made both into the media phenomenon it has become. Nightdive Studios is an indie video game developer and publisher established in 2012 with a focus on developing, restoring, enhancing, porting, and publishing old video game IPs.
In “The Struggles Behind Bringing Back System Shock” video, Kick kicks off with stories about some of the classic games of the past Nightdive has worked to bring into the 21st century. Games such as 7th Guest (1993), 11th Hour (1995), I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (1995), Strife (1996), Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (1997), and Forsaken (1998) have all been worked by Nightdive. According to the Nightdive website, the studio now has 100 games across multiple digital platforms in its catalog.
Kick begins the System Shock tale by relating when he and his then-fiance took a year-long vacation road trip to the Panama Canal. He had brought along a choice collection of video games to play, including Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, Fallout 2, and System Shock 2. When he found that System Shock 2 just wouldn’t start on the Chromebook, he went to GOG.com in the hopes of downloading it from there, only to discover the game wasn’t available at the time.
Kick’s investigative efforts led him to eventually bring System Shock 2 to GOG.com, with the game of course becoming a smash hit there. The work Kick put into this project is what he credits for creating the whole Nightdive Studios business model. Later, when the studio took on the task for the System Shock Enhanced Edition, the team saw the potential of fully reworking the original game into a new engine and all the possibilities for improving it that would bring about.
Those possibilities were not at all easy to achieve, as Kick relates. He walks through the plan Nightdive had to crowd-fund the reboot, hiring new developers and bringing in System Shock’s original concept artist Robb Waters, to how that plan veered off in an entirely new direction so drastically that Nightdive had to reboot the reboot. Kick’s story goes from scary, in hearing how close the reboot came to never happening, to inspiring, in hearing how the studio managed to hold on to the dream of seeing the reboot plan get solidified.
Head over to the Noclip YouTube channel to watch “The Struggles Behind Bringing Back System Shock”, then download and play the System Shock Remastered Demo from Steam. Follow Nightdive Studios’ Twitter channel for more System Shock updates, and the Noclip website for more info on many more excellent video game documentaries.
Source: “The Struggles Behind Bringing Back System Shock”
