SYSTEM SHOCK

Rebooting the '90s immersive sim with some hi-tech augmentations

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As if trying to comfort us with a recognisable dystopia, System Shock’s new intro bombards us with ’80s cyberpunk imagery. Observing through the windscreen of a flying car, we’re swept around angular skyscrapers in the pounding rain, then spy a lone hacker hunched over a computer in an executive office and switch to his view. He’s attempting to steal a valuable neural implant, but triggers an alarm, summoning armoured security who rendition him to a space station. Here he’s offered an ultimatum: disable the station AI’s ethical restraints, or die. The hacker complies, then loses consciousness as a guard injects him with anaesthetic.

There are differences from the 1994 intro here – that initial tour through the city, for example, and the now fully voiced scene with Edward Diego in the Citadel station – but the display of retrofuturism underlines that the developer of this reboot has no intention of updating everything.