Night Dive Studios’ upcoming System Shock remake has moved from its previously planned Unity engine to Unreal Engine 4, game director Jason Fader told Polygon at the Game Developers Conference 2017.
“Unity is not a great engine to use if you want to make an FPS on console,” Fader said. “So we spent a few weeks researching other engines, really diving deep with Unreal and Lumberyard, and we made the decision to pull the trigger and move forward with Unreal.”
Fader added that Unreal Engine 4 was “the smarter direction to go” given the game’s combination of fidelity, cross-platform support, content-creation pipelines, and performance.
The remake, or “faithful reboot,” as Fader calls it,” will not touch the story or characters, but it will have more refined dialogue. Most of the classic creatures, weapons, items, and areas will return, but modern game design principles and visuals are being applied. A lot more of the station will be opened up as well. Fader calls it “more of a Metroidvania-style game,” adding that, “at one point I wanted to call it open world, but it’s not a world. But it is openly explorable. Once you get out of that starting area, the station is your oyster.”
System Shock is due out for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Mac, and Linux in Q2 2018.
Watch a new pre-alpha gameplay video showcasing the game running on Unreal Engine 4 below. View a set of screenshots at the gallery.
