System Shock 3 pre-New Years bad news

[673f451950259JDoran]

Apologies if this (or related news) has already been posted here, but I've just read this, from:

https://forums.duke4.net/topic/8386-system-shock-3/page__view__findpost__p__334675

"This is a late, but I have some bad news to share. Recently a bunch of key developers on System Shock 3 updated their Linkedin profiles to say they were no longer working at the Austin branch of Otherside, including team members who hosted the game's 2019 GDC presentation. They've been without a publisher since the Starbreeze sold the rights to Otherside in February. The game was announced four years ago. This many people leaving the studio en mass suggests that they're possibly running low on cash and a publisher is desperately needed for the game to move forward. Even if it's not cancelled already, I doubt they can make much meaningful progress with a skeleton crew. Sadly a similar thing happened with Underworld Ascendant. Despite being announced in July 2014 and running a successful Kickstarter campaign, development ran on fumes until summer 2017 before 505 agreed to publish. The scope radically changed and the end result was a catastrophic failure."

The post was made on 31st December 2019.

It's not looking great for SS3, sadly.

[673f4519503c5avalanche foam]

What did you expect after UA?

[673f45195059aZylonBane]

What did people expect after Daikatana?

[673f4519506efKolya]

I don't know, maybe it's for the better. Their SS3 demo was terrible.

[673f45195089dfox]

That last trailer some time ago had me assuming that at least the game wasn't doomed to go that unworthy low-budget route that UA went. I've just watched it again and still think that it looks alright. I have no expectations beyond a general "Get it right or don't do it at all!" - unfortunately that botched UA-release certainly did cast long shadows and this SS3-team did very little / nothing to prove that SS3 is shaping up differently.

How would the publically released material so far (four years!) inspire any confidence in potential publishers? Either they simply have nothing good or their PR-department blows big time. Maybe both.

[673f4519509e5Starspawn]

After Thi4f, I can't say I was all that eager for Syst3m Shock

[673f4519515e8ZylonBane]

Why would you imagine any sort of connection between the two? Different franchises, different companies, different developers. Literally nothing in common with their development.

[673f45195193aJML]

After Thi4f, I can't say I was all that eager for Syst3m Shock

Kudos for funny names!

[673f451951a30ZylonBane]

The "Thi4f" nickname has been around since before Thief 2014 was even released.

[673f451951c74JML]

The "Thi4f" nickname has been around since before Thief 2014 was even released.

So he is a thi4f! Shame!

[673f451951e6aavalanche foam]

What did people expect after Daikatana?

Maybe archaeologists will tell us some day 

[673f451951f61fox]

As far as I remember, it was Eidos Montreal themselves who used "Thi4f" in the announcement of the game. People started to make fun of it right away.

[673f45195225dRocketMan]

We should pool our money together, hire Teri, teef Otherside's shodan head and finish the game ourselves.  There's enough talent on this forum to cobble together something that would be far better than what's been produced to date.

[673f4519523c2icemann]

If that fan made expansion to SS2 had been completed, that would have rivaled everything.

[673f45195270dZylonBane]

If that fan made expansion to SS2 had been completed, that would have rivaled everything.

Are you talking about The Shock Project?

Maybe archaeologists will tell us some day 

Don't worry, you'll understand rhetorical questions when you're older.

[673f451952973avalanche foam]

Don't worry, you'll understand rhetorical question when you're older.

You're not offering much encouragement there

[673f451952c5fJosiahJack]

We should pool our money together, hire Teri, teef Otherside's shodan head and finish the game ourselves.  There's enough talent on this forum to cobble together something that would be far better than what's been produced to date.

  ...tempting....

[673f451952ee5icemann]

Are you talking about The Shock Project?

Yes

[673f4519530aeJDoran]

At least it was nice to believe that we might get a System Shock 3, and even to hope that it might be as good as SS2. It could still happen, of course, this news just makes it rather less likely that we'll see such a game in the near future, that's all. And since we're currently in the era of the walking simulator (another three dozen or so have no doubt been released since I started typing this sentence), then the immediate video gaming future doesn't look too challenging, sadly.

It is disappointing that with the indie gaming scene so large and active now, that we don't see any good attempts at a SS2 style game. At least I don't know of any, and surely if one was known to anyone on here, then there'd be a thread about it? The game doesn't even have to be commercial, a new mod for an existing engine could be great. Does anyone know of any such games, be they all-new games or total conversions for existing games? Games that are available now, or are still in development? There are lots of first person indie games and total conversions, but any with the depth of and ambition of SS2? I'm not including the existing mods for SS2, as we all know about those, of course.

[673f451953557Berathraben]

It is disappointing that with the indie gaming scene so large and active now, that we don't see any good attempts at a SS2 style game. At least I don't know of any, and surely if one was known to anyone on here, then there'd be a thread about it? The game doesn't even have to be commercial, a new mod for an existing engine could be great. Does anyone know of any such games, be they all-new games or total conversions for existing games? Games that are available now, or are still in development? There are lots of first person indie games and total conversions, but any with the depth of and ambition of SS2? I'm not including the existing mods for SS2, as we all know about those, of course.

I can think of two games that feel like good attempts at a SS2 style game, feel ambitious,  and bring their own vision to the games. IMHO the two below are shaping up to be very good games.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/427880/PAMELA/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/626250/Consortium_The_Tower/

Both are in early access right now.

If i think of anymore I will post them here. I agree that games like SS2 are in very short supply. Prey 2017 did a good job though.

I still have hopes that SS3 will see the light of day.

[673f45195364dicemann]

Consortium I'd more associate with Deus Ex.

[673f451953783Berathraben]

You have a point. Overall, it is structured more like Deus ex with it's branching dialog. And it does feel like Deus Ex because the main protag is an agent. But to me, in general, it has a interconnected level design that feels very much like SS 1 and 2. It shares some similar design philosophies to both Deus ex and SS2 and there are some indie games, though not many, making games designed in a similar way is more what I meant. 

The developers did cite LGS and Diehard as some of their inspirations.  

[673f4519538b1icemann]

https://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&boardid=1&threadid=207929

A second article concerning fears of SS3's cancellation.

[673f451953a06voodoo47]

they need to do what NDS did - sit down, take a deep breath, refocus, and ideally wipe all that dumb in-between-quel crap away and start anew.