System Shock 2 is a cult first-person shooter and RPG, one of the two pillars of the “immersive sim” genre, along with “Deus Ex”. The project was ahead of its time, greatly influenced the industry and showed that games can be real art. The foundation laid by him is present in one form or another in Half-Life 2, Dead Space, Alien: Isolation, Portal and Metal Gear Solid. The main idea of ​​emergent gameplay, that is, a set of rules and mechanics that allows the player to get an unpredictable experience, continues to live in the spiritual heirs – BioShock, Dishonored, Prey (2017) and Void Bastards.

Concept art by artist Gareth Hinds

It’s hard to imagine now, but System Shock 2 just might not have happened. Although the first part was well received by critics and players, it was sold in a small circulation. It was not even possible to repel the development. Warren Spector, the creator of System Shock, was hard at work on Thief: The Dark Project and was not thinking about a sequel at all. At the same time, the concept of a project “with a story from the real world and realistic gameplay” emerged in his head, which would be embodied in the famous “Deus Ex” a few years later.

Warren Spector, the father of the immersive sim genre

This would have been the end of the story of System Shock 2, before it had even begun, if it were not for a lucky coincidence. Let’s rewind time a little to understand all the subtleties thanks to which System Shock 2 was born.

In 1995, the staff of “Looking Glass Studio” (developers of “System Shock”) was replenished with a novice game designer – Ken Levin. Along with studio veteran Doug Church, who took the inexperienced newcomer under his wing, he worked on the concept of Thief: The Dark Project in the early stages of production. It was Levin who came up with the main stealth mechanic that wanders from game to game, where the hero gains power by hiding in the shadows and loses it when revealed.

“Thief: The Dark Project”

The same “main stealth mechanic” from hiding in the shadows

After that, he was entrusted with work on the action Star Trek: Voyager based on the series of the same name. In the end, one and a half years of work did not lead to anything – the game was unexpectedly canceled. This greatly upset Ken, who spent a lot of time on the plot. His feelings were shared by programmers Jonathan Chey and Robert Fermier. The guys got along from the very beginning and worked well, even became friends. The feeling of uncertainty prompted them to leave Looking Glass Studio and open their own firm, where there would be firm management with a clear plan for the future and a high bar of game design standards. That’s how, in 1997, “Irrational Games” was born.

His own person is Ken Levine

The first project was supposed to be a single story campaign for the multiplayer strategy “FireTeam”, but the customer suddenly abandoned this prank. The newly created studio was on the verge of disappearing after a few months of existence. And yet, Irrational Games did not give up. In a hurry, they sketched the concept of an isometric strategy, with which they went to investors in search of funding. For various reasons, no one agreed.

The trinity was saved by Paul Neurath, co-founder of Looking Glass Studio. He called with an offer to create a prototype game based on the Thief engine to justify the cost of developing it. Irrational Games grabbed the saving straw without thinking. A working prototype of the sci-fi role-playing shooter “Junction Point” was hastily assembled. According to Levin, they had to master the art of presentation, because one wrong move would break the hell out of everything. When the picture reached “Electronic Arts”, they were satisfied with what they saw. At the time, they owned the rights to System Shock. And they offered Irrational Games to develop the work in System Shock 2. This is how the cult sequel began, changing the industry, and the young studio avoided sudden death. But the team had a long and thorny road ahead.

According to information from various sources, a modest 650-700 thousand dollars were allocated for System Shock 2. For those years, the amount is too small – everything had to be saved. The deadlines for the development of the ambitious project were also short – about a year. For these reasons, “Irrational Games” was forced to hire juniors. One of them was 19-year-old Mike Swiderek. He did all the interfaces in the game and later worked on BioShock and BioShock Infinite.

Short deadlines deprived the studio of the opportunity to deal with an important part of development – iterations. This is when various elements are shuffled in all sorts of ways and tested a lot in search of the best option. As Jonathan Chey mentions, they had to make the game right away, which is why there are things in System Shock 2 that are not so good. In addition, the team did not have time to “clean up” motion capture, which was full of glitches. One of the most common is getting the characters’ hands stuck at odd angles.

“System Shock 2”

Similar problems bothered Jonathan Chey. He was very concerned about the quality of the project, because their company, names and reputation as developers were at stake. Levin treated it much more simply. He explained his attitude as follows:

“I think I’m lucky in the sense that I can fall in love with things even if they’re not yet worthy of much love. This is very important for a developer because making games is not fun. They are not fun until fairly late in development. System Shock 2 was certainly no exception»

Concept art of opponents:

There are entire parts of the game and episodes that Ken is unhappy with. For example, he didn’t like the character creation stage at all – too much text. Some of the characters are too talkative. In addition, Levin was not satisfied with the level in the body of the Many – the biological collective mind created by SHODAN. A colossal number of ideas turned out to be an unbearable burden for a young and “green” studio, which did not fully understand how much effort implementation costs.

At first, Levin wanted to make a zero-gravity walk between the two ships. With this thought he came to Chey. He, however, refused it, explaining how much time and effort it would take to implement the idea. According to Jonathan, he often acted as a filter, while Ken was responsible for generating ideas.

Due to the short development cycle, the ending of System Shock 2 suffered. The Looking Glass Studio engine was not very suitable for creating complex cutscenes. If there were no problems with the simple ones, even if they were not of the best quality, then doing something ambitious was not possible in principle. At least not in the conditions in which Irrational Games worked.

According to the developers, it was very difficult to adjust the camera operation and get the “timings” right when the behavior of the characters is constantly changing. For example, enemies easily patrolled the area or searched the area, but as soon as they were forced to perform certain actions or sent to the right point, the cutscenes immediately broke. Characters would start walking on the reverse side of the platform, get up on the wrong side of the table, or get stuck altogether.

SHODAN

As a result, Levin had to abandon SHODAN’s ambitious cutscene of the complex betrayal. Short deadlines left no choice but to look for a more affordable solution.

The lack of time caused another problem – the release version had critical bugs, which the developers later learned about. Chey came across one in a battle with the boss of many. To deal with him, the player must first shoot the flying bullets. They were spinning in a circle, but due to a glitch with the frame rate, they flew out of the level, where they are no longer reachable. And therefore, it is impossible to win. Loading a previous save didn’t always fix the error. Sometimes she appeared before the player entered the room and broke the entire passage. According to Jonathan, it’s a real torture to find a bug and realize that it can’t be fixed.

The boss of the Many and the ill-fated bullets

Not without crunches. For example, Chey was simultaneously a project manager, programming AI, and handling administrative duties like payroll and taxes. He worked six and a half days a week and did not even celebrate holidays.

Levin also gave his all, but perceived what was happening differently. The weekend was long and lonely for him. Ken admitted that these days he most wanted to come to the office and work. Back then, the game was all he wanted to do in life.

But, if you omit all the difficulties, the developers found the advantages of their brainchild. As Chey pointed out, System Shock 2 stuck by looking at shooters in a different way. While other representatives of the genre at the time focused only on action, their game offered an elaborate story, character customization, stealth, crafting and exploration.

Levin felt the same way. For himself, he singled out three main aspects of “System Shock 2”. First, a cocktail of shooter mechanics and role-playing elements. Secondly, the emphasis is on processing and building the world. Third, the relationship between the main character and SHODAN. The latter was conceived by Ken in the early stages of production, because nowhere did he encounter a complex interweaving of mutual aid and rivalry among inseparable enemies.

Atmospheric cover of “System Shock 2”

System Shock 2 was released on August 11, 1999, without becoming a commercial hit, but gaining immense love from players and critics. It has received nearly a dozen awards, including seven Game of the Year awards from reputable publications such as Game Revolution and USA Today. The sequel was praised for its hybrid gameplay, gloomy sound, interesting story and more. IGN’s Trend Ward emphasized the flexible character development that made each playthrough unique. “Game Revolution” assured its readers that the game is “full of horror” and rivals “Resident Evil 2” and “Silent Hill” in terms of “horror”.

“Irrational Games” during the development of “System Shock 2”:

Irrational Games didn’t get a cent from sales, but they gained weight in the gaming industry, which helped them a lot in the future. And this is all that the studio wanted to achieve.

According to Levin, System Shock 2 made him realize that he is in his place, and the lack of technical education did not stand in the way of achieving success. And Ken realized that he could create games that players would enjoy. Chise considers System Shock 2 the pinnacle of his career, even after developing BioShock.

In 2015, Irrational Games closed down. Ken Levine has founded a new studio, Ghost Story Games, and is currently working on Judas. Jonathan Chey works at Blue Manchu, which in 2019 released Void Bastards, the spiritual successor to System Shock 2. And Robert Fermier at Nightdive Studios worked on the remake of the first System Shock, which was released this year.

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