System Shock: Kickstarter money gone after a year of development, project almost cancelled

The remake of System Shock came on the market after a long, difficult development that lasted more than seven years. Stephen Kick, head of Nightdive Studios, revealed in the issue 386 of Edge magazine why it was very difficult to launch it. The Kickstarter of the based campaign money that all started ran out after the first year and the project was almost cancelled so as to avoid risk of building a corrupt software house.

But how was the money spent? Basically, once the Kickstarter campaign was successful, Nightdive entrusted the game to a team of expert developers, with considerable portfolios, which however hadn’t done much after a year, apart from some conceptual artwork and levels still made up of gray blocks (so as to call it the sketch phase of the structure based on the same word and for convenience).

The darks went a long way to move the development in-house, but instead of running out of money, went to the library, where they could work. He only gave them permission to meet twelve of them. The sequel of system Shock was saved in the remastering work carried out by Nightdive in the years allowing him to finance the game’s development, while causing much sleepless nights for the poor Kick, who had to think of a way to carry it forward, ending up doing so from the director because he couldn’t find other people suitable for the role.

All but good will end well even though many years late.

If you want more information about the game, read our review of system Shock, which is currently available for PC.