System Shock 2 is a 1999 action role-playing and survival horror video game designed by Ken Levine and co-developed by Irrational Games and Looking Glass Studios. Originally intended to be a standalone title, its story was changed during production into a sequel to the 1994 game System Shock. The alterations were made when Electronic Arts—who owned the System Shock franchise rights—signed on as publisher.
The game takes place on board a starship in a cyberpunk depiction of 2114. The player assumes the role of a soldier trying to stem the outbreak of a genetic infection that has devastated the ship. Like System Shock, gameplay consists of first-person combat and exploration. It incorporates role-playing elements, in which the player can develop skills and traits, such as hacking and psionic abilities.
System Shock 2 was originally released in August 1999 for Microsoft Windows. The game received critical acclaim but failed to meet commercial sales expectations. Many critics later determined that the game was highly influential in subsequent game design, particularly on first-person shooters, and considered it far ahead of its time. It has been included in several greatest games of all time lists. In 2007, Irrational Games released a spiritual successor to the System Shock series, titled BioShock, to critical acclaim and strong sales.
System Shock 2 had been in intellectual property limbo following the closure of Looking Glass Studios. Nightdive Studios were able to secure the rights to the game and the System Shock franchise in 2013 to release an updated version of System Shock 2 for modern operating systems, including for OS X and Linux, and released a 25th anniversary remaster of the game in 2025. OtherSide Entertainment announced in 2015 that they had acquired the rights from Nightdive Studios to produce a sequel, System Shock 3, but as of 2020 the rights have since been transferred to Tencent.
Gameplay
left|thumbnail|alt=An in-game System Shock 2 gameplay screenshot, showcasing the interaction menus. A hand is holding a silver pistol while the mouse is pointed at an unknown robotic being, while on top of the screen several minor objects are shown organized as in inventory.|The player, armed with a pistol, faces a protocol droid while in the interface mode. The inventory is at the top; health, psionic points, [[nanites, and cyber modules are at the bottom left; and the cyber interface and weapon information are at the bottom right.]]
As in its predecessor, System Shock, gameplay in System Shock 2 is an amalgamation of the action role-playing game and survival horror genres. The developers achieved this gameplay design by rendering the experience as a standard first-person shooter and adding a character customization and development system, which are considered signature role-playing elements.
The backstory is explained progressively through the player's acquisition of audio logs and encounters with ghostly apparitions.
The player can upgrade their skills by using "cyber-modules" given as rewards for completing objectives such as searching the ship and spend them at devices called "cyber-upgrade units" to obtain enhanced skills. The player can hack devices, such as keypads to open alternate areas and vending machines to reduce prices. When a hack is attempted, a minigame begins that features a grid of green nodes; the player must connect three in a straight row to succeed. Optionally, electronic lock picks, called "ICE-picks", can be found that will automatically hack a machine, regardless of its difficulty.
Throughout the game, the player can procure various weapons, including melee weapons, pistols, shotguns, and alien weapons. Non-melee weapons degrade with use and will break if they are not regularly repaired with maintenance tools. There are a variety of ammunition types, each of which is most damaging to a specific enemy. For example, organic enemies are vulnerable to anti-personnel rounds, while mechanical foes are weak against armour-piercing rounds. Similarly, energy weapons cause the most damage against robots and cyborgs, and the annelid-made exotic weaponry is particularly harmful to organic targets. Because ammunition is scarce, to be effective the player must use it sparingly and carefully search rooms for supplies.
The game includes a research function. When new objects are encountered in the game, especially enemies, their organs can be collected; when combined with chemicals found in storage rooms, the player can research the enemies and thus improve their damage against them. Similarly, some exotic weapons and items can only be used after being researched.
Five months into the journey, the ships respond to a distress signal from the planet Tau Ceti V, outside the Solar System. A rescue team is sent to the planet's surface, where they discover strange eggs; these eggs, found in an old ejection pod, infect the rescue team and integrate them into an alien communion known as "the Many" - a psychic hive mind generated by parasitic worms which can infect and mutate a human host. The parasites eventually spread to both ships and take over or kill most of their crews.
Story
Owing to a computer malfunction, the remaining soldier awakens with amnesia in a cryo-tube on the medical deck of the Von Braun, being implanted with an illegal cyber-neural interface. Another survivor, Dr. Janice Polito, contacts and guides him to safety before the cabin depressurizes. She demands that he meets her on deck 4 of the Von Braun. Along the way, the soldier battles the infected crew members. The Many telepathically communicate with him, attempting to convince him to join them. After restarting the ship's engine core, the soldier reaches deck 4 and discovers that Polito is dead and is soon confronted by SHODAN. It is revealed she has been posing as Polito to gain the soldier's trust.
SHODAN mentions that she is responsible for creating the Many through her bioengineering experiments on Citadel Station. The Hacker, who freed her from her ethical restraints, ejected the grove that contained her experiments to prevent them from contaminating Earth, an act that allowed part of SHODAN to survive in the grove. The grove crash-landed on Tau Ceti V. While SHODAN went into forced hibernation, the Many evolved beyond her control. SHODAN tells the soldier that his only chance for survival lies in helping destroy her creations. Efforts to regain control of XERXES, the main computer on the Von Braun, fail. SHODAN informs the soldier that destroying the ship is their only option, but he must transmit her program to the Rickenbacker first. While en route, the soldier briefly encounters two survivors, Thomas "Tommy" Suarez and Rebecca Siddons, who flee the ship aboard an escape pod.
With the transfer complete, the soldier travels to the Rickenbacker and learns both ships have been enveloped by the infection's source, a gigantic mass of bio-organic tissue that has wrapped itself over the two ships. The soldier enters the biomass and destroys its core, stopping the infection. SHODAN congratulates him and tells of her intentions to merge real space and cyberspace through the Von Brauns faster-than-light drive. The soldier confronts SHODAN in cyberspace and defeats her. The final scene shows Tommy and Rebecca receiving a message from the Von Braun. Tommy responds, saying they will return and noting that Rebecca is acting strange. Rebecca speaks in a SHODAN-like voice, asking Tommy if he "likes her new look" as the screen fades to black.
History
Development
thumb|250px|alt=A green-cloaked man is staring from the right corner through black goggles to another deformed human being, who is close to a dead body of a woman laying on the floor along with several blood marks and some destroyed things.|Horror is a key focus of System Shock 2. This [[concept art depicts the protagonist encountering an infected crewmember in the Recreation deck of the Von Braun.]]
Development of System Shock 2 began in 1997 when Looking Glass Studios approached Irrational Games with an idea to co-develop a game. The original title, according to its pitch document, was Junction Point. The philosophy of the design was to continue to develop the concept of a dungeon crawler, like Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, in a science fiction setting, the basis for System Shock. However, the press mistook System Shock to be closer to a Doom clone which was cited for its poor financial success. With Junction Point, the goal was to add in significant role-playing elements and a persistent storyline as to distance the game from Doom.
The title took 18 months to create with a budget of $1.7 million.
The designers included role-playing elements. Similar to Ultima Underworld, another Looking Glass Studios project, the environment in System Shock 2 is persistent and constantly changes without the player's presence. Paper-and-pencil role-playing games were influential; the character customization system was based on Travellers methodology and was implemented in the fictional military branches which, Horror was a key focus and four major points were identified to successfully incorporate it. Isolation was deemed primary, which resulted in the player having little physical contact with other sentient beings. Secondly, a vulnerability was created by focusing on a fragile character. Last were the inclusion of moody sound effects and "the intelligent placement of lighting and shadows".
Release
A demo for the game, featuring a tutorial and a third of the first mission, was released on August 2, 1999. Nine days later, System Shock 2 was shipped to retailers in North America. The game was made available in the United Kingdom one month later on September 18. An enhancement patch was released a month later and added significant features, such as co-operative multiplayer and control over weapon degradation and enemy respawn rates. A port was planned for the Dreamcast but was canceled. a "Shock Texture Upgrade Project" increased the resolution of textures,
Intellectual property debacle and re-release
The intellectual property (IP) rights of System Shock 2 were caught for years in complications between Electronic Arts and Meadowbrook Insurance Group (the parent company of Star Insurance Company), the entity that acquired the assets of Looking Glass Studios on their closure; however, according to a lawyer for Star Insurance, they have since acquired the lingering intellectual property rights from EA.
In the player community, attempts had been made to update and patch System Shock 2 for known issues on newer operating systems and limitations that had been hard-coded into the game. In 2009, a complete copy of System Shock 2s Dark Engine source code was discovered in the possession of an ex-Looking Glass Studios employee who was at the time continuing his work for Eidos Interactive. In late April 2010, a user on the Dreamcast Talk forum disassembled the contents of a Dreamcast development kit he had purchased, and among the content he received was some of the source code for Looking Glass games, including System Shock. An unknown user, going only as "Le Corbeau" (The Raven), issued a patch for System Shock 2 and Thief 2 in 2012 that resolved several of the known issue with the Dark engine and other features. It is believed that the patches were enabled by the Dreamcast kit, using a combination of the available source code and by disassembling libraries off the development kit. The patch became known informally as the "NewDark" patch to distinguish it from other efforts to improve the game.
At about the same time, Stephen Kick of Nightdive Studios had been seeking to rerelease System Shock 2 on Windows, and Star Insurance provided him with the rights to do so. Shortly after getting this approval, the NewDark patch had been released, and Kick attempted to contact "Le Corbeau" to discuss the use of their patch, but the user was impossible to contact. The update rights also allowed a Mac OS X version of System Shock 2 to be subsequently released on June 18, 2013, through GOG.com. The title became available on Steam on May 10, 2013. In April 2014, a Linux version was also released. Both the OS X and Linux versions run through Wine. "Le Corbeau" has continued to update the game since 2012, with their patches being incorporated into the versions that Nightdive distributes through GOG.com and Steam.
Since then, Nightdive has acquired the rights to System Shock, releasing an enhanced version in September 2015. Kick has reported they have acquired full rights to the series since then.