For a certain sort of PC gaming fan, System Shock is where it all began. 30 years of immersive sim development started here, as Looking Glass escaped the restraints of the RPG genre and embraced thoughtful first-person action. SHODAN broke free, and the world was never the same. Without System Shock, there would be no Thief or Gloomwood, no Prey or Dead Space. Bioshock was conceived as its sequel. The creative figureheads behind Deus Ex and Dishonored were wrapped up in its creation, and forever changed by contact with Looking Glass and its unique philosophy.
Countless studios have used Citadel Station as a star to steer by, measuring their own work against System Shock’s commitment to simulation, dense atmosphere, and method-ish refusal to break character. This was not so much a game as an alternate reality. As one of our interviewees tells us: “We were trying to build the holodeck.”
Here’s the story of how it was made, as told by the people who made it.