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Editorial The Making of System Shock 2 with Ken Levine @ Edge Online

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Tags: Irrational Games; Ken Levine; Looking Glass Studios; System Shock 2

Edge Online has put up a 2-page article about the making of System Shock 2, based around a narrative-style interview with Ken Levine. Have a snippet:

The company’s first project, a singleplayer version of early isometric shooter Fireteam, had been cancelled when its publisher decided to concentrate solely on multiplayer. This left Irrational at a loss, until Paul Neurath, head of Looking Glass, called with an opportunity. While they’d left Looking Glass, they were still on good terms with their previous employer. In fact, their half room was actually buried in a corner of the larger studio.

Neurath’s offer was incredibly open. Looking Glass had, in making Thief: The Dark Project, developed its own in-house engine. All of Irrational were experienced with it, having all worked on Thief. Why not make a game with it with us? Any game you fancy, really. “We immediately started designing,” Levine recalls.

“The three partners sat down, and we ended up with a game design which was basically our design for Shock 2, but in a totally different world. It was a kind of Heart Of Darkness story, with a military commander gone crazy and your mission was to go to this crazy spaceship and assassinate him.”

This was pitched around various publishers. The one that bit was Electronic Arts, which – through its purchase of Origin – was in possession of the System Shock IP. EA suggested that the game could, in fact, be System Shock 2. “And we said, ‘Um… sure’,” Levine laughs. “I rewrote the story and changed a few of the things, but the game design never changed.”

It was a rare opportunity. The original System Shock was one of the games that made Levine want to move into the videogame industry in the first place. What made it so special? “The feeling of being in a real place,” he raves. “The feeling of a mystery, of unraveling it – not in an adventure game way, but in the context of an action game. You arrive and… what happened? That’s a really good storytelling mechanism.” Austin Grossman and Doug Church’s original idea from Shock was something Irrational expanded in its sequel. “In Shock 1 you were a specific guy, you had a backstory,” Levine notes. “With Shock 2, I started you out with the classic ‘wake up with amnesia’.”​

Read the article in full here.

Spotted at Gamebanshee
 

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This was pitched around various publishers. The one that bit was Electronic Arts, which – through its purchase of Origin – was in possession of the System Shock IP. EA suggested that the game could, in fact, be System Shock 2. “And we said, ‘Um… sure’,” Levine laughs. “I rewrote the story and changed a few of the things, but the game design never changed.”​

Interesting. Maybe that explains the derpy ending.
 

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This was pitched around various publishers. The one that bit was Electronic Arts, which – through its purchase of Origin – was in possession of the System Shock IP. EA suggested that the game could, in fact, be System Shock 2. “And we said, ‘Um… sure’,” Levine laughs. “I rewrote the story and changed a few of the things, but the game design never changed.”​

Interesting. Maybe that explains the derpy ending.

Nah.
 

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Electronic Arts, Bullfrog's publisher, acquired the studio in January 1995.Molyneux had become an Electronic Arts vice-president and consultant in 1994, after EA purchased a significant share of Bullfrog. Molyneux's last project with Bullfrog was Dungeon Keeper and he left the company in August 1997 to found Lionhead Studios.

“The three partners sat down, and we ended up with a game design which was basically our design for Shock 2, but in a totally different world. It was a kind of Heart Of Darkness story, with a military commander gone crazy and your mission was to go to this crazy spaceship and assassinate him.”
This was pitched around various publishers. The one that bit was Electronic Arts, which – through its purchase of Origin – was in possession of the System Shock IP. EA suggested that the game could, in fact, be System Shock 2. “And we said, ‘Um… sure’,” Levine laughs. “I rewrote the story and changed a few of the things, but the game design never changed.”

System Shock 2 was released on August 11, 1999, in North America.

:hmmm:

I was the same guy who kept Molyneaux on a leash! Not the hero we deserved, but the hero we needed! :salute:
 

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Interesting. Maybe that explains the derpy ending.

Bah, the ending was your standard dun dun dun the villain still lives, nothing too derpy about it. The only problem with it is, that if by some miracle EA ever rescues the SS license from IP hell, you might be able emotionally engage fuck Shodan's now physical body in the sequel.
 

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Interesting. Maybe that explains the derpy ending.

Bah, the ending was your standard dun dun dun the villain still lives, nothing too derpy about it. The only problem with it is, that if by some miracle EA ever rescues the SS license from IP hell, you might be able emotionally engage fuck Shodan's now physical body in the sequel.

I'm not talking just about the end movie. I'm talking about the entire endgame after destroying the Many. It seemed very tacked on.
 

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The final level with the SS1 textures and Delacroix's full exposition mode journals? It felt mostly rushed to me. Not enough money for a complex level and the necessity to confront Shodan directly.
 

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Wait, wait wait, SS2 was released in 1999?? No fucking way, I firmly remember playing it earlier than that, in 1997 or something...

What gives?
 

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Wait, wait wait, SS2 was released in 1999?? No fucking way, I firmly remember playing it earlier than that, in 1997 or something...

What gives?
It's obvious that there is a global conspiracy to conceal the real release date of SS2! It must be the Jews!
 

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I'm not talking just about the end movie. I'm talking about the entire endgame after destroying the Many. It seemed very tacked on.

I've read somewhere they wanted to do something on the lines of 'walking in zero-G ouside the Von Braun and fight the Many' but the technology limitations of the time killed it.

However, the feeling of 'unfinished stuff' hit me before, I think on the Rickenbacker.
It 'felt' less finished and detailed than the Von Braun. But maybe my memory is simply playing tricks on me.
 

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I'm not talking just about the end movie. I'm talking about the entire endgame after destroying the Many. It seemed very tacked on.

I've read somewhere they wanted to do something on the lines of 'walking in zero-G ouside the Von Braun and fight the Many' but the technology limitations of the time killed it.

However, the feeling of 'unfinished stuff' hit me before, I think on the Rickenbacker.
It 'felt' less cured and detailed than the Von Braun. But maybe my memory is simply playing tricks on me.

No, it's definitely true. Oh, what could have been...
 

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SS2 should have had an option to side with the Many and/or Shodan, always missed those options.
 
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Yeah, you are taken to a hackshop and zombified. Game over. Would be a great twist. Kind of like how you can "join" The Master in Fallout. Dipped inthe vats and game over. Or the enclave in Fallout 3. You are given a lethal injection and done.
 

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Wait, wait wait, SS2 was released in 1999?? No fucking way, I firmly remember playing it earlier than that, in 1997 or something...

What gives?

I think I have a demo of it from 1998 somewhere, but I only saw it in stores in 1999. Small little box. :(
 

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