System Shock remake back in development, due Q1 2020

The crowdfunded remake of sci-fi adventure System Shock is back in production, after the developer put it on hold last month.

Nightdive Studios previously told Kickstarter backers it was revising its plans for the updated System Shock, but stressed that the project had not been cancelled.

At the time, CEO Stephen Kick made the odd statement that "maybe we were too successful" when explaining why work on the game had been paused, but he elaborated on this while talking to PC Gamer at GDC last week.

"We understood based on the backer feedback, especially, that we weren't going in the right direction with the game, what we promised to them," he said. "That's what really caused the shift in what we're doing now, which is going back to what we'd established and represented with the Unity demo."

Following the success of the crowdfunding campaign - raising $1.3 million - the team switched from Unity to Unreal, an engine they plan to stick with. But the final product will be closer to the original game, with business development head Larry Kuperman saying that feature creep and the team's desire to put their own stamp on the project meaning "it wouldn't have been true to the System Shock vision."

Nightdive says it plans to "ship exactly the game that was promised... in a timeframe that will get it out as fast as we can" but still doesn't expect a release before Q1 2020.

That's three years later than the original release date of Q4 2017, and means the System Shock remake will more than likely arrive after System Shock 3, the Starbreeze-published new entry with original developers Paul Neurath and Warren Spector at the helm.

Kuperman assured that Nightdive is not concerned about its finances, with the game now being developed attracting interesting from publishing partners that previously were put off by the project's increasing complexity.