This coming March next month will mark a full years since the first debuting footage that teased the upcoming and highly-anticipated System Shock 3. Fans of the series have patiently been waiting for the third entry of the series for two decades since the titular second installment released in 1999.
However, despite the promising footage that release and details that followed the approaching title, a new rumor has surfaced suggesting that development for the game has ceased and potentially leaves the title to be cancelled ultimately. According to an anonymous developer who worked on the game, the unnamed individual tells that development team responsible for System Shock 3 “is no longer employed.”
On video game forum RPG Codex, the faceless developer tells that the team was already “critically behind” and has decided to reiterate previous claims that were made earlier on in 2019.
The only reason I’m posting is because I saw so much confusion about the state of the company and the project I thought some first person information would be welcome.
Restating some of the major departures that developer Other Side Entertainment was faced with resulted in losing the game’s a writer/director, community manager, lead programmer, QA lead, senior environment artist, and senior designer.
Elsewhere in the report from Video Game Chronicles, the anonymous developer also spills the beans reiterated from heavy speculation. Disclosing that the reasoning which truly resulted with these team members leaving the studio is rooted to the decision made by former publisher Starbreeze Studios. When initially under the Swedish firm, the company decided to sell the publishing rights in an attempt to revitalize the publisher from closing, which they were later successful at doing.
“If Starbreeze hadn’t gone into crisis I think we would’ve delivered something interesting with some fresh and innovative gameplay, but a much smaller game than what people were expecting and inevitably disappointing for a sequel to such a beloved franchise.” The unknown source adds-on that with the team being self-reliant following the decision, the studio still had to meet these expectations paved from the elongated wait atop of competing software releasing.
Acknowledging that the team is fairly small for the size of this project, the developer still went to strive for unique and experimental elements that would help the game compete against other properties in the genre. Ultimately, this lead to the unnamed developer admitting that these obstacles overwhelmed the team including the project as well. “And we were on our way to make something unique and possibly fun, but probably not what the audience was hungry for.”
Do you plan on picking up System Shock 3 if it eventually releases?
Source: Video Game Chronicles