System Shock 3 is a game many have clamored for and asked about for years. It’s no surprise, either, as its predecessor, System Shock 2, is one of the most important sci-fi games of all time. System Shock 3 was expected sometime following System Shock 2, but nothing ever came of it. Instead, we got BioShock.
However, Nightdive Studios, which would go on to succeed in a massive Kickstarter fundraiser for a remaster of the first System Shock, bought the rights to the franchise from Star Insurance in 2015.
Then, later that year, Otherside Entertainment (formed by Paul Neurath, the creative director of Looking Glass Studios, the studio that originally created the System Shock series) announced that it was developing System Shock 3. Wait, how is that possible? Didn’t Nightdive Studios own the rights to the franchise? Well, it turns out Nightdive Studios simply gave Otherside Entertainment permission to make the threequel.
Two years passed with nigh a word, and then in March of 2017, Starbreeze Studios announced that it had signed a publishing deal with Otherside Entertainment to bring System Shock 3 to PC and other platforms. Two more years passed, mostly void of System Shock 3 information, but in 2019, we got a teaser featuring the evil AI, SHODAN.
That teaser was the last we heard about System Shock 3. Is it canceled? Nothing seems to indicate that. Is it stuck in development hell? Considering we haven’t heard a word about it in over two years, almost certainly. Will it make it out? Who knows, but Nightdive Studios seems committed to making System Shock a mainstream franchise, especially if the live-action System Shock television series it’s making is any indication.
