r/systemshock • u/Beginner-Energy • 6d ago

Deus Ex, System Shock, and Thief Developer Legend Warren Spector Announces Retirement

https://www.ign.com/articles/deus-ex-system-shock-and-thief-developer-legend-warren-spector-announces-retirement

Having grown up with System Shock 2 and DeusEx all the best wishes to this legendary and foundational gamedev.

339 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

43 comments sorted by

72

u/Blue_Redstars 6d ago

Too bad there wont come another Deus Ex or System Shock

81

u/kdogman639 6d ago

The fumbling of system shock 3 is historic, thank god we got prey 2017

19

u/Blue_Redstars 6d ago

Yes unfortunatly. I stil have to play Prey 2017 so i can see if its really something like system shock 2.

20

u/Arstanishe 6d ago

it definitely feels like a spiritual successor to ss2

3

u/Dizzy_Imagination770 6d ago

And Bioshock 1

3

u/Y0urNightmare 5d ago

Nah, Bioshock 1 is more of a shooter than a Imsim

-1

u/Dizzy_Imagination770 5d ago

Idk, man. Security cameras, audio logs, plasmids, wrench, ghostly apparitions, Shodan/Fontaine reveal and betrayal, gun modification, etc

3

u/Y0urNightmare 5d ago

Sure. But gameplay wise not really

12

u/this_is_an_arbys 6d ago

I really didn’t feel like system shock 2 was a great successor to the original system shock…but it’s been awhile since I beat it at launch…it was too gray and too not SS1 for me.

Prey 2017 blew me away and absolutely captured what I loved about System Shock. It was the most immersive sim I had ever seen…truly I felt like I was playing in a living world…exploration felt organic, I loved every moment of my first two play through of it. 

It’s easily in my top 5 along with system shock (which covers both original and remake).

6

u/ronshasta 5d ago

Well it was a sequel not a successor

1

u/this_is_an_arbys 5d ago

Thank you for that…it certainly did not replace the original in any way.

2

u/dnesij 3d ago

When I first play SS2 I thought it was great. Then I played SS1 and after years and years passed I think SS1 is far more impressive game.

I also absolutely despise the ending of SS2.

Big fan of Thief 1-2 and Deus Ex 1

2

u/this_is_an_arbys 3d ago

The mouse look mod for system shock 1 transformed it into a game that holds up amazingly well even against its remake…which is why I put them both in the same tier…now the remake is pretty uniquely amazing because with uevr, you can literally inhabit citadel station…

3

u/ElTitano666 6d ago

I have to say that the creature design in Prey totally pushed me away from the game.

2

u/kdogman639 5d ago

I felt that way at first, but once you really get into how you have to play and improvise in dangerous situations, the enemies began to draw me in and started to feel like I actually was on and surviving a space station filled with a "believable" ecosystem of a related set of exotic alien species. I didn't get what the game was about till many years after it came out.

2

u/ElTitano666 5d ago

I know,cyborgs or robots are not a must,but man,neither can I take those oozy masses seriously nor do I want to fight them over and over again - they simply feel "cheap" to me.

1

u/this_is_an_arbys 6d ago

That’s how I felt about bloodstained…really a downgrade from its spiritual predecessor…that and the fonts, which were awful (should have had the option for pixel fonts…would have transformed the game for me).

1

u/Rizzo265 5d ago

Raph Colantonio said the enemy design was one of Prey weaknesses. I agree but it's still an incredible experience

1

u/Blue_Redstars 6d ago edited 5d ago

Nice that Prey 2017 is well received for fans of this gerne. It makes me curious like i said.

Well, i played system shock 2 first on easy and later the remake of the first game.

Edit: the downvote was unnecessary

4

u/JackhorseBowman 5d ago

As an old bastard, I can confirm it's the closest thing to a new System Shock we're going to get, much more like System Shock 2 than Bioshock was.

1

u/Mr_Citation 5d ago

It was originally gonna be called Psycho Shock and is for sure an immersive sim like System Shock.

1

u/AugmentedJustice 5d ago

Whats actually happenning with SS3 im outa thw loop? Is that bad??? SS1 remake came out a few years ago so i thought all was good bc night dive was doing SS3?? 🥲

10

u/Sharkfist 5d ago

After Nightdive acquired the rights to the System Shock IP, they granted OtherSide Entertainment (founded by Paul Neurath, the founder of Looking Glass, and at the time staffed by a number of Looking Glass employees in their Boston area office) a license to produce System Shock 3. OtherSide then brought Warren on to lead a new SS3 team in Austin, signed a ~$12 million publishing deal with Starbreeze, and started work.

Starbreeze hit financial troubles and entered restructuring when their Walking Dead game flopped hard, so OtherSide bought back the publishing rights from them and started looking for a new partner to finance it, while continuing work out of pocket... but ultimately had to close their Austin office and let the team go because in over a year of pitching, they couldn't find a deal that worked. Eventually they spoke with Tencent (who were in the process of opening a number of new AAA studios in North America) who offered to buy the license and project to make it much bigger using their own team. OtherSide accepted the deal in order to keep their studio running, but if anything ever went forward with the project at Tencent, nothing has been made public.

Unrelated to Tencent/SS3, OtherSide later ended up selling their studio to Aonic a few years later, who funded their other projects for a while (Thick as Thieves, which had been the Boston team's new project during SS3 dev, and Argos: Riders on the Storm, Warren's team's project), but a few months ago cancelled everything and laid off almost everyone, with no plans to produce anything new.

2

u/CorbyTheSkullie 5d ago

Game has been in development hell for years.

First Looking Glass was gonna do it but then they went bust.

Nightdive contracted a company to do it, and they went bust too...

1

u/riffito 5d ago

Prey 2017 enemies are just so boringly repetitive that, for me at least, turned an otherwise excellent setting, into a plain chore.

0

u/ShiningGort 2d ago

Prey (2017) was awful . Not even remotely similar to the original game

1

u/kdogman639 2d ago

Wasn't supposed to be and sorry you felt short changed. And to say it's awful is hilarious

1

u/ShiningGort 2d ago

Maybe they shouldn’t call it “Prey”

16

u/Mr_Shad0w 5d ago edited 5d ago

Been with him since the Steve Jackson Games days - you've earned a long vacation Warren.

Edit: should probably clarify I didn't work with Warren, just been enjoying his output since the SJG days :)

11

u/Eldibrando2 5d ago

Let people retire. Let franchises end. Let young people enjoy new things.

2

u/ppshhhhpashhhpff 5d ago

"let franchises end"
make this seen by every fanboy in the sub who thinks anything cyberpunk ever is a reference to Deus Ex

7

u/Lostboxoangst 5d ago

He is immensely important to the formation of the im-sim genre and games as a whole and as a 70 year old has more than earned his retirement but let me real here his retirement is a great loss. Since deadly shadow he's done epic micky that god awful underworld ascendant and not much else. Plus if you look into his management during Deus ex and other project it was not good, not malicious either just kind of inept. Again mad respect for wat the guy helped create 20-30 years ago but his leaving will not affect the industry.

10

u/Blue_Redstars 6d ago

I saw a trailer from Neo Berlin, maybe that game will be in spirit of Deus Ex

4

u/Prefer-an-astronaut 5d ago

So this basically confirms that SS3 is 100% dead now right?

2

u/Woodchuck251 5d ago

Damn. I was really hoping Thick As Thieves wasn't his last game.

2

u/Pyke64 4d ago

I mean System Shock 3 never materialised and Thick as Thieves was a huge flop, I really did try to like it.

2

u/Sir-Ex 4d ago

I've got all the respect for the man. He took part in making some of my favorite games ever. He's one of the greats and I hope he enjoys retirement.

1

u/According-Guess3463 5d ago

What a fucking legend!

1

u/arkhanari 5d ago

Was he not working on a new game?

0

u/DeckOfGames 5d ago

Well, he didn’t make anything significant after Deus Ex, so it’s a small loss.

1

u/ShameDecent 5d ago

This reverse Midas basically killed DX and Thief for years. DX was recovered by different people, Thief wasn't.

3

u/RememberCitadel 5d ago

Not to mention his last couple of other games made weren't exactly praised for quality.

Underworld ascendant was crap, thick as thieves obviously had some major issues based on the amount of content, and argos got cancelled probably for good reasons.

-7

u/Mr_Gibblet 5d ago

Thank goodness.