How System Shocks Reboot Wrestles With Adapting Its Legacy

How much of a game s identity is tied up in its rough edges What do you gain by smoothing those edges away What do you lose System Shock (1994) and System Shock (2023) serve as a nice case study for this line of thought. While 1994 s System Shock is a seminal work whose impact echoes through to today it s also a game a lot of people simply refuse to play given its archaic input systems and lowfi graphics. Meanwhile, 2023 s System Shock wants to bring the game to The People but that means hammering a game that s full of awkwardbutinteresting choices into something a bit more conventional. Does that smooth out the game s problems, or erase its identity Let s take a look