Some significant events happened at System Shock 3 developer OtherSide in February, as it parted ways with publisher Starbreeze while the development team was reportedly let go. A new forum post suggests that the project is still alive, but right now, there’s room for doubt.

In a forum thread about layoffs that was active since June 2019, marketing and business development VP Walter Somol wrote the following on 10 April 2020:

“We’re still here. We’re all working remotely right now, probably like most of you.

Our new concept is coming along nicely and we are really excited about it.

We have cool and we think distinctive art style for it and we have that and gameplay coming together in UE4.

I know it’s a tease, but I just can’t really say anything about it at this point.

I hope you all are staying safe and healthy in these unfortunate times.

Maybe even gaming more than usual, I know I am.”

This suggests that System Shock 3 is still under development. But as VGC notes, Somol is based in OtherSide’s Boston studio, which made Underworld Ascendant, whereas System Shock 3‘s development team was based in Austin.

This leaves room for speculation, then, especially in regards to that “new concept” mentioned by Somol. Also of note is his mention of Unreal Engine 4, as back in 2019, System Shock 3 was announced as a Unity Engine game. It wouldn’t be a surprise if it had switched engines though, as that’s what the System Shock remake by Nightdive Studios did back in 2017.

While System Shock 3‘s fate remains unclear (an anonymous Reddit user claimed that while “there is still a core team that still exists… it’s more or less in limbo or arrested development”, but that’s still unverified), the remake still appears to be alive and well, with a 90-minute demo video being released in January 2020. As for System Shock 3, you’ll have to travel back to 2019 to check out its pre-alpha gameplay.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilPpmW59gZg&w=560&h=315]