Legendary game series 'System Shock' is getting a sequel

It looks like System Shock 3 is going to be a thing. Otherside Entertainment put up a countdown which was quickly decoded by fans to point to a teaser for the new game. System Shock and its sequel were a pair of groundbreaking and highly acclaimed games. Outwardly first-person shooters, a more apt description would be survival horror with elements of RPG. The minds that worked on the games went on to make Bioshock and Deus Ex, both of which built on its structure, albeit in different ways.

Although developer Night Dive has been working on a remake of the original game and expressed an interest in creating an all-new title, it appears the studio is not involved with System Shock 3. Only the Otherside logo is present on the teaser page. The site's description invites us to "Join the original team behind Ultima Underworld on a quest to rekindle this legendary fantasy RPG series," but this is probably leftover from an old Ultima page -- as legendary as System Shock is, it's tough to see why anyone would describe the title as a fantasy RPG.

Otherside has strong links to the System Shock series, as many of its staff worked for Looking Glass Studios, the developer of the original. Most notable is OtherSide's founder Paul Neurath, who oversaw development of System Shock 2 in his role as Creative Director at the company. However, some of the big names who worked on the originals, like Doug Church, Ken Levine and Warren Spector, are not currently affiliated with Otherside. Levine is at Take Two, Spector works in education and Church is at Valve doing who knows what.

The studio is also working on a reboot of another Looking Glass series, Ultima Underworld, which was partially funded through Kickstarter earlier this year. It's not clear if System Shock 3 will also be headed to crowdfunding, but you can sign up for updates at the teaser site to find out.