


We are taking a break, but NOT ending the project. I have put the team on a hiatus while we reassess our path so that we can return to our vision. I can tell you that I did it for all the right reasons, that I was totally committed to making a great game, but it has become clear to me that we took the wrong path, that we turned our backs on the very people who made this possible, our Kickstarter backers. As the CEO and founder of Nightdive Studios, a company that was built on the restoration of the System Shock franchise, I let things get out of control. Ultimately the responsibility for the decisions rests with me.

The more that we worked on the game, the more that we wanted to do, and the further we got from the original concepts that made System Shock so great. As the budget grew, we began a long series of conversations with potential publishing partners. With the switch we began envisioning doing more, but straying from the core concepts of the original title.Īs our concept grew and as our team changed, so did the scope of what we were doing and with that the budget for the game. We shifted engines from Unity to Unreal, a choice that we don’t regret and one that has worked out for us. We moved from a Remaster to a completely new game. We put together a development team and began working on the game. It was tremendously successful with over 21,000 backers contributing over $1.3 million to the campaign. In June of 2016 we launched a Kickstarter campaign to make the vision into a reality. Done in Unity it was an immediate hit with almost a half million views on YouTube. In March of 2016, Nightdive Studios released our video of our vision of System Shock Remastered. Still, it seems as if Nightdive Studios still plans on working to complete the game, which is likely to keep Kickstarter backers happy, for now.įor the full statement from Stephen Kick on the hiatus, check out below: With the budget growing, the studio aimed to speak to potential publishing partners, but whether or not that worked has not been confirmed. According to Kick, the reason for the hiatus seems to be a lack of focus and vision, with Kick noting that the studio shifted engines throughout its development, causing their ambition for the game to grow, which caused the budget to grow.
