System Shock 2 Enhanced Edition devs are focused on multiplayer and mods

[Shard Shinjuku]

https://www.pcgamer.com/system-shoc..._source=twitter&utm_campaign=buffer-pcgamertw

Nightdive Studios announced last week that it's working on an enhanced version of System Shock 2, which came as a shock to me because I thought it had been announced months ago. Apparently I confused it with one of the other System Shocks currently in the works—either the remake of the original, which Nightdive is also working on, or System Shock 3, being developed by Otherside Entertainment. There's a whole lot of Shocking going on.

But System Shock 2 Enhanced Edition is something else entirely, and I'm very excited that it's happening because the original is a spectacularly good game but also very dated: The character models were pretty ugly when it was new and 20 years under the bridge hasn't made it any prettier. Hopefully Nightdive will be able to give it an appropriate facelift, but studio CEO Stephen Kick told GamesRadar today that it's actually putting its focus on the game's multiplayer.


"Our priority with the Enhanced Edition is to be able to deliver an updated co-op multiplayer component. As of right now starting a co-op campaign is needlessly complicated and we're going to address that by implementing features that will enable a more modern and streamlined experience," Kick said.

"Our other priority is to ensure that all existing mods and fan missions are compatible with the Enhanced Edition, but much of that will rely on the cooperation of the mod community. We have some other surprises that we'll be revealing in the future."

Click to shrink...

 

[Forgotten in Space]

I honestly never understood why anyone would want to play this game in co-op, and even less why it's a priority for the Nightdive team, but that's just me.

SS2 is one of my favourite games of all time and I've played it through countless times in the last 20 years, and the one time I played it co-op it only diminished the experience. Each to their own I guess.

 

[Gush]

Makes sense. There's not much else that really needs enhancing other than things that fall outside of the scope of a remaster.

I'd actually really like to try the co op. I've played through ss2 many times but seeing it from more of a breezier angle with a friend seems cozy if only for the novelty. Never could get it to work on the current steam version.

 

[Nacery]

I honestly never understood why anyone would want to play this game in co-op, and even less why it's a priority for the Nightdive team, but that's just me.

SS2 is one of my favourite games of all time and I've played it through countless times in the last 20 years, and the one time I played it co-op it only diminished the experience. Each to their own I guess.

Click to shrink...

It's not so much about the main campaign as for fan missions.

 

[Forgotten in Space]

It's not so much about the main campaign as for fan missions.

Click to shrink...

Ah ok, makes more sense I guess.

 

[deft]

Neat. I wanted to try it co-op but would have had to set up a virtual LAN or similar and i gave up.

Very glad to see they'll work on modding support.

 

[Truly Gargantuan]

Hmm...if they added some randomization element to a separate mode, like a roguelite mode, and added co-op I'm all over it.

 

[Deleted member 23212]

I'm wondering what the Enhanced Edition adds considering the game already has WASD and support for modern operating systems/resolutions by default in the Steam/GOG versions.

 

[Deleted member 8861]

I'm wondering what the Enhanced Edition adds considering the game already has WASD and support for modern operating systems/resolutions by default in the Steam/GOG versions.

Click to shrink...

Last I checked there was no HUD scaling option so playing the game in 1080p, say, made the HUD look so small as to be illegible.

 

[Nordicus]

I honestly never understood why anyone would want to play this game in co-op, and even less why it's a priority for the Nightdive team, but that's just me.

SS2 is one of my favourite games of all time and I've played it through countless times in the last 20 years, and the one time I played it co-op it only diminished the experience. Each to their own I guess.

Click to shrink...

There is one interesting way in how the game changes in multiplayer, however it is very much not the same experience anymore:

You and your friend can have normally CRIPPLINGLY specialized character builds, which makes for an interesting co-op experience, in my opinion. After finishing the game properly in singleplayer, I played in multiplayer as BUTCH DEADLIFT while my friend could play a smartypants psionics dude that died to a gentle breeze

 

[Zor]

Man, it is SO wonderful that we have not just a remake of System Shock to look forward to, but a genuine, bonafide System Shock 3 AND even newer Enhanced Edition of 2 now on the horizon. And by the sounds of it, the three of them releasing relatively close to one another. Where once the rights seemed to be screwed and any future Shock game doubtful, we really are getting spoiled soon and I couldn't be more pleased.

 

[BigTnaples]

Hoping for controller support and UI adjustments.


Also, I think Nightdive should really look into adding RTX support for these older remasters on PC. Would be a (relatively) easy and cheap way to make the Enhanced versions graphically enhanced a great deal, without having to rebuild a ton of things from the ground up.

 

[SofNascimento]

System Shock 2. Multiplayer.

Wait, what?!

 

[Edward850]

Also, I think Nightdive should really look into adding RTX support for these older remasters on PC. Would be a (relatively) easy and cheap way to make the Enhanced versions graphically enhanced a great deal, without having to rebuild a ton of things from the ground up.

Click to shrink...

Not so relatively easy, I'm afraid. RTX support requires appropriate shaders and environment mapping to take advantage of the environment for every texture and surface. This is information a lot of these older games do not have at all, and would need to be made from scratch. Also as a technology, RTX is complicated to use when only a small handful of us even have the cards to use it. In fact I'm the only (Kex) programmer with an RTX compatible card, and I'm not even a rendering technician so wholy not the person to do the job.

System Shock 2. Multiplayer.

Wait, what?!

Click to shrink...

Yes, System Shock 2 has multiplayer. It's not in great shape though and needs some serious TLC.

 

[SirFritz]

Last I checked there was no HUD scaling option so playing the game in 1080p, say, made the HUD look so small as to be illegible.

Click to shrink...

SS2 does have hud scaling if you're running newdark and edit the com_ext.cfg file. This part in particular

; enable scaling of in-game 2D overlay (HUD), makes the things like current item/weapon text, or SS2
; HUD/panels, larger at resolutions of 1280x960 or higher with pixel perfect scaling (requires "use_d3d_display")
; NOTE: Enabling scaling may actually improve performance, especially at high resolutions.
;d3d_disp_scaled_2d_overlay 64
; alternatively a fixed 2D resolution can be defined, which is aspect ratio corrected and scaled up
; to the current resolution, without enforcing pixel perfectness (ie. filtering makes it a bit less crisp)
d3d_disp_scaled_2d_overlay 800 600

 

[ArbitraryWater]

Having finally played System Shock 2 within the last few months, the idea of playing that game cooperatively sounds neat but also kind of antithetical to everything it's going for. It's a spooky immersive sim that gets a lot of mileage out of isolation, and I'm not sure how well that'd carry over if you're constantly talking to someone the entire time.

Still, I'm not going to get on too high a horse, because I also bet I could convince multiple people to play it with me cooperatively who might otherwise never give it the time of day on their own.