 System Shock is the grandeur of immersive sims, a game nearly 30 years old by now, known by every hardcore gamer but experienced by an increasing minority. After all, we're being babied by gamer-friendly systems and few of us have the appreciation for the rough-and-tumble design principles of yesteryear, right? Right! The demo of the remake has convinced me that developer Night Dive Studios knows how to set a tense atmosphere, one that had my pulse quickening every time some nightmarish space zombie or robot jumped me from a nook or cranny I'd failed to spot. Corshers afraid I'd move on with the greatest care, and just when I thought I'd wisened up to the game's tricks and calmed down, the System Shock remake would get me. The graphics may not be mind-blowing for surrealism, but they don't need to be. They're brilliant at setting out the tone this game has to establish to be faithful to the original. System Shock is firmly in cyberpunk horror territory, where it should be. A mysterious virus has ravaged the space station you're waking on, turning the staff into zombies. But as far from where the unchuckled AI showdowns, ambitions and plans come to an end. My closest point of reference to System Shock has to be something like Arcane Studios' 2016 title, Prey. In many ways, Arcane has been the torchbearer of the interactive sim genre over the last decade. Although, of course, a studio like Deus Ex Human Revolution's developer, Eidos Montreal, is to be celebrated in almost equal measure. At any rate, if this is as faithful a remake as it seems to be, I can see how some of what Prey did was very much inspired by this classic. The protagonist's apartment in this demo, for example, struck me with its similarities to the apartment in which Prey's opening takes place. But the design principles in Prey are much different, more modern, than those that define System Shock. While updated, I could feel a very different logic underlying System Shock, than the one that brings Prey to life. A comparative study between the two would be a joy to work on. To return to the point, the difference in design philosophies was ironed into my mind when I was stuck down an irradiated zone for a solid three minutes, incapable of finding my way back because the force field I used to get down would not go back up. The solution? I had to flip a switch. Only I'm so used to have developers use blaring white or red paint to indicate what's interactable and what isn't. That I didn't even think of it while I scrambled around, didn't even consider that those panels that look so much like every other paneling in the game might actually be worth trying to press. Didn't even think I could press them. None of it came to mind while I scrambled around dying of radiation poisoning. Once I figured it out, I felt so supremely stupid when I realized my oversight and that might be a good thing because it highlights that System Shock Remake is a game that will ask you to think, in fact, I know it is. A remake of System Shock wouldn't be true to the original if it didn't. The world is full with interactable items, some of them useless, some of them fascinating, many of them inducing a slow moving sense of dread. I've heard of Shodan, but to get my first glimpses of her in this remake of her horrific, truly horrendous ways of turning this station into her personal fiefdom, my hairs stood on ends. Directive to Cyborg F71, move Mutagen Experiment V5 to beta grove on the executive level. Let the virus loose in the grove and observe its effects on flora and fauna. Collect samples from the mutated. Kill those who have not shown progress and we will soon have a perfected string that will consume the earth, allowing me to reshape the insects in my perfect image. Particularly grizzly is the death animation, which sees you turning into a cyborg, trapped into horrific servitude to the cruel AI. I can't wait to experience one of the best written AIs for myself, to measure wits and lose sleepover. Yeah, I was a little spooked after this first delve into the game. I was also deeply fascinated by every text and audio log I came upon. These are well written, I suspect most of them are straight out of the original game, at the very least I hope they are. But again, I'm the wrong person to draw comparison between the original and the remake because I've never experienced the original and I'm afraid I probably won't have the time to change that. This remake should be out in March, marking whatever date it pops up on as a very exciting time for me. I played the demo for close to two hours and I didn't even manage to wrap up the first zone. It kept me up until after two in the morning. If that's anything to judge the finished remake by, this is going to be a chunky game. I hope to the gods this one is successful. The immersive sim genre has long been in decline, but if any genre deserves a renaissance and many many titles, it's this one. I think I'll be buying System Shock on release even if I'm not sure how long it will be before I give this game the time of day, the sound realities of being a grad student. What I know is that every single one of my 118 minutes spent on this demo well, they were tenses all hell, but they were also an incredible amount of fun. If you'd like to find out more about my journey into the System Shock remake, keep an eye out. Please like this video, share it with your friends, don't forget to subscribe, or you know, maybe go and give System Shock the demo, the full game, or try out your own. I'll see you next time. Bye! We hope you have a pleasant stay on Citadel Station.