Despite speculation, System Shock co-creator Warren Spector – and his studio Otherside Entertainment – hasn't been working on System Shock 3 since 2019.
While Otherside announced that the long-awaited sequel's development had transferred over to Tencent in 2020, it was unclear at the time whether Otherside would remain involved in the project in some respect.
However, speaking to GamesBeat, Spector confirmed that Otherside is totally divorced from the project and Tencent is now its only developer."There’s not much more to say at this point," he said. "Tencent is taking the franchise forward. It’ll be up to them to say what they want to say. There’s not much clarification I can give you."
Spector made clear that Otherside only worked on System Shock 3 in 2018 and 2019, before the project was passed onto Tencent. Spector added that Otherside had, at a maximum, 17 employees on the project, but said that the problems involved in passing the project on never made him think he should dissolve the company, despite having to make layoffs:
"I never thought that it would be good to disband any team. It happens in this business, maybe more frequently than one would hope. But no. I had a good team. We ran into some circumstances. Tencent is now taking the franchise forward. It’s good for everybody, honestly."
Otherside had orgiinally obtained the rights to develop System Shock 3 and further sequels, while NightDive Studios is currently working on a remake of the original game. It's not clear where the ongoing rights for the System Shock series lie. Tencent is a Chinese developer and publisher best known for its work on mobile games including Call of Duty: Mobile.
Spector says Otherside is now working on a wholly original game, but which he suggests will be an evolution of his work in the space of immersive sims such as System Shock and Deus Ex: "I’m a relentless advocate for a particular kind of game, for immersive simulations. I’m going to do that for the rest of my life, or at least the rest of my career. If I can’t do that I guess I’ll stop making games. But in many ways [the new game is] what I’ve been thinking about for quite a while as the next step in immersive sims. If we pull it off, people are not going to be ready for what’s going to hit them."
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale.