Ken Levine, who worked at Looking Glass when it making System Shock, certainly never stopped trying to make System Shock, eventually giving BioShock: Infinite an ending that suggests there are thousands upon thousands of variations on this theme. It’s easy to understand why people played this game and then became obsessed with it, why you can trace some people’s careers through the game. You can draw a clear line of inspiration from the 1994 first-person adventure game to immersive sims like 2000’s Deus Ex, 2007’s Bioshock, and 2017’s. There’s always a discovery - a new weapon or a vending machine or a shortcut - or at least a useful lesson lying in wait. I often found my way through levels mostly by accident, by deciding to turn down hallways I hadn’t gone down before. A seminal cyberpunk first-person exploratory adventure game with RPG elements in which, waking up in the Citadel Space Station, a lone hacker has to survive. It also rewards your curiosity as much as it does your caution. System Shock 2 is a genre defining experience that established innovative game-play mechanics that are a staple of the FPS and RPG genre today. You can get yourself into unsolvable situations - it’s a game that asks you to pay attention, that doesn’t always signpost the next thing to do. You can - and probably will - eat absolute shit the first time you try to make your way through the medical bay. What really excites me when I play System Shock is how little it holds my hand.

System shock game