The System Shock series is well known for being an early entry in the FPS gameplay style that combines that type of gameplay with horror elements. The second game, which we will be talking about, took that a step further and added RPG based upgrade systems to create a more rounded package.
The remake of the original was certainly plagued with time issues. Originally announced in 2015, the game would go through a kickstarter campaign, several name changes, and a long development. By the time it came out on May 30th, 2023, the remaster of the sequel had already long been confirmed in 2019.
So before we get too far into this, I need to mention what this game is and what it isn’t. The terms “remaster” and “remake” have been used somewhat interchangeably in the last few years. With that and the fact that the 2023 release was called a remake, I thought I’d clear up some confusion I’ve seen online. This is a remaster through and through. With the expectations being, a few minor tweaks, controller support, and much better-looking visuals, this is more or less the same game released in 1999(weird jank included).
With that out of the way, I’m here to let you know if System Shock 2 is worth picking up.
What’s Going On?
System Shock 2 takes place over 40 years after the original game, in 2114. You, soldier G 65434-2, are assigned to UNN Rickenbacker l, which is attached to the Van Braun. A while into the journey, a distress call from the planet Vau Centi V will bring your crew in contact with some strange eggs that will infect your crew and bring on “The Many.” You wake up from cryo sleep with no memory of anything. Dr. Janice Polito, who helps you out at first, turns out to be SHODAN. An extremely creepy A.I. who ends up being the only help you’re going to get out of this insanity. Don’t worry for she’s actually responsible for the existence of “The Many,” so she will be extremely helpful in dealing with them.
Gameplay
The System Shock series is one of the earliest examples of combining an FPS with RPG and horror elements to create a very unique experience both for the time and even now, or atleast the second one is(the original floppy disk release of the first game had no voice acting). The RPG elements are limited to stats you can upgrade, but back in 1999, these sorta of things had not migrated away from RPGs much at this point
You will die a lot in this game if you never played either of the originals or the remake of the first. The two main things that give this horror elements are the creepy monotone, ghoulish voices of Shodian and The Many, and the anxiety this game can induce by having many difficult enemies that can kill you at the drop of the hat. When you level up your stats, this feeling subsides for a bit, and then the game will introduce another enemy that kicks your ass. Personally, I loved this about this game. Some modern games can be too easy, and you won’t get that here.
This remaster does bring with it one major game play difference. The addition of controller support, and it works really great for about 75% of the game. While you can use the controller to navigate your inventory, map and your audio logs and emails and the like, I found the keyboard and mouse much easier to do these this with so did switch back and forth a bit. It’s not the biggest deal, but it’s worth mentioning.
I did run into a couple of annoying things with System Shock 2. The game does come with a somewhat steep learning curve at the beginning if you haven’t played the first one. On top of that, at times, the game can be somewhat vague on what to do next. You may be told to go to a cargo bay, but it may fail to mention which cargo bay on which floor of the ship. It doesn’t help that this game does a good job of being a maze, though not nearly as bad as the first game. It’s sometimes hard to progress in even without the vague directions. This wouldn’t be the biggest issue but map markers guiding you to your next location are non-existent here. If you don’t play old games, this is a problem that may annoy you.
Performance
As usual, the smaller this section generally the shorter the better, and luckily, this will be pretty short. You don’t really get anything it the way of options with this game. You simply set the resolution and FPS(1440p and 120fps for me) and go. There are options for bloom. Ambient occlusion, antialiasing, and gamma, and that’s it. No lighting or textures
As far as FPS, I ran MSI afterburner for about the first 45 minutes of the game and never got a single frame drop during game play, so I turned it off. After that I never saw anything that made me want to turn it back on. This is about as well optimized a game as it comes and there shouldn’t be any issues.
Steam Deck
Once again, this will be short. I have the old LCD steam deck model with a 60hz screen, so I just set it to 60FPS, and once again, everything was rock solid, as it should be for a verified game. The only real issue i had was before I mentioned I liked to switch to keyboard and mouse for certain menus, and that’s not an option on Deck. It’s probably not worth bringing up, but now this section is more than one sentence at least.
Conclusion
Regardless of the few issues I ran into with navigation and vague directions. While this is an issue here, the original was much, much worse, and I’m glad there were some attempts after fixing that. I had a lot of fun with this game. The story is super creative in a charming b horror sci-fi sort of way, the enemy variety was enough to keep me on edge, and the old school challenge it brings is something I think more mainstream games should take a crack at more often.
The game is super solid and still holds up pretty well today in my opinion and I hope it does well enough that we finally get the third installment of the series(that’s a long and complicated story) and as such its worth a solid rating.
I’d like to thank Nightdive Studios for sending us the review code for Steam. System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster released on June 26th 2025 on PC and July 10th on Xbox Series X/S, PS4/5 and Nintendo Switch.
The game was reviewed on PC.
