System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Preview – How Nightdive Studios approaches remastering an influential classic PC game

Growing up in the 90s, I was raised on PC gaming at the end of the MS-DOS era and into the earliest consumer Windows operating systems. Games like DOOM, Quake, and Rise of the Triad were the games of my childhood. Companies like Nightdive Studios also clearly have an affinity for the era, in recent years putting out a surprising number of modern ports & remasters (including for each of the aforementioned games), alongside a ground-up remake of 1994’s System Shock. The tagline on the company’s website reads: “Bringing lost and forgotten gaming treasures back from the depths.”

We at RPG Site focus on games with role-playing elements, of course, so System Shock and especially its sequel are ones we’ve been keeping an eye on since Nightdive acquired the license nearly a decade ago, essentially defining the founding of Nightdive Studios itself. At GDC 2025, I was able to go hands-on with an early version of System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster while speaking with Larry Kuperman – VP of Business Development at Nightdive – as well as producer Grover Wimberly at Nightdive, about the long-awaited remaster.

So if Nightdive acquired the System Shock license more than a decade ago, why has it taken so long for the remaster of System Shock 2 to be released? In fact, the remaster’s title has even been changed to celebrate the game’s 25th anniversary in 2024.

“We started off with our focus on the remake of System Shock 1,” Kuperman says. “That project was in development longer than we had anticipated, but we were very, very happy with the outcome. It was an award-winning title. That said, Nightdive has been in a position where we’re courted by companies asking us to do other work. Some of the projects required our moving resources around from one thing to the other. We’ve done DOOM 1 and DOOM 2, Quake 1 and Quake 2. I mean, those projects weren’t something we had to really think long and hard about “Do we want to do those?”, of course we did! So we’ve had a very full plate, but this game has been in production for some time.”

Unlike the original System Shock, which was remade completely from the ground up, its groundbreaking sequel is getting the remaster treatment.

When it comes to remastering a beloved classic, Kuperman explains Nightdive’s approach. “We want to make sure that players get the original emotional feeling of the game. It does have a very strong emotional impact, particularly on the horror side of it, so we wanted to make sure that we preserve it. It’s a mantra of ours that one of our games should play the way you remember it played, not necessarily the way it actually played back then, as you were looking at it on your 14-inch CRT monitor.”

I, personally, have never played the original version of System Shock 2, although I am aware of its influence on future games like Bioshock, as well as its broader influence on the immersive sim and horror genres. Despite being new to the game, playing the in-build remaster this week felt familiar to me; a game that felt like it was from the 90s in the best way possible.

“We keep very much to the original DNA of the game. So, somebody who has played the original System Shock 2  .. this would all be familiar. ” Kuperman explains.

So what’s being added to System Shock 2’s remaster? In terms of gameplay content, actually not too much. However, taking a classic PC exclusive and translating it to a variety of consoles is a big endeavor, especially when it comes to controls. Producer Wimberly explains:

“One thing that’s important to mention too is the original System Shock 2 was PC-only game, right? You could only play it with mouse and keyboard. We’ve optimized for controller support for the very first time with the remaster. We’re not only aiming for PC, but we’re also releasing for all current consoles. So anything that you can do with a mouse and keyboard needs to be playable with a controller in mind as well. We’ve been showing people the game who play on Steam Deck .. they want to see how the controls worked there, and how gamepad controls work.”

Nightdive understands that remastering classic games should be more than just porting old ROMs to Steam. True to their ‘bringing lost and forgotten gaming treasures back’ motto, one component new to the 25th Anniversary Edition is a Vault, which will hold a variety of media regarding the original creation of the game.

“The System Shock 2 remaster is going to have a Vault. If you’re not familiar with that, it’s something that was something that we started with Quake. It’s going to have images, it’s going to have the historical legacy of the game, which we feel is important in our preservation elements,” Kuperman states.

Nightdive also doesn’t want to infringe on the original design too severely, risking alterations made that could change values & properties of the game that made it beloved in the first place.

“I think it’s fair to say that games in those days .. the assumption about players’ abilities was that you would be able to figure things out without necessarily being told. You probably didn’t need those four coffee cups that you picked up because just you could, and you quickly learned that you’ll have limited resources and you have to manage them carefully,” he explains.

Kuperman continues, “The other part, that was a lesson that we learned from those games, is that the game didn’t really have waypoints. There wasn’t a lot of hand-holding, right?  You weren’t getting tips that say, ‘Hey, pick up the wrench because you’re going to need it.’ We found that players will rise to that and it’s a safe assumption to make that people will figure things out. We want our projects to recapture what was important about the game in those days. In terms of things that we do look to change – we want modern players coming to the game for the first time to be able to play our games intuitively and to understand how they work.”

As I continued to play through the System Shock Remaster demo at GDC, figuring out how to work the menus and stumbling around a derelict ship, I hear Larry chuckle to himself.

“I’m always endlessly fascinated watching people learn how to play System Shock 2 for the first time.” 

System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Edition is set to release on June 26 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC (Steam, Epic, GOG).