System Shock 3 team may be ‘no longer employed,’ key staff have exited

If you’ve been waiting for System Shock 3 to hit your beloved PC, your wait will likely have to continue. And it’s mainly because of a shock that happened outside of the system. VGC has noted that several key members of the OtherSide Entertainment development team have exited in the past five months, including the game’s design director, Chase Jones, who updated his Linkedin recently. Meanwhile, an anonymous source has come forward alleging that the development team “is no longer employed.” As a result, the third chapter in the legendary horror series could be on hold at the moment.

What happened with the System Shock 3 crew?

Sam Luangkhot, the studio’s former community manager, is confirming the accuracy of the anonymous source, who claimed to be part of the development team. This source spoke in the forums at RPGCodex, saying the team fell “critically behind” in terms of making progress on the game, though OtherSide has issued no official statement on the matter.

They mentioned how the project was a subject of “expensive experimentation,” which may explain how it fell so far behind. Considering that the “small team” couldn’t “compete with current immersive sims in production quality and breadth,” some harsh decisions ended up being made. And apparently, being “creative and clever and weird” with a much-beloved franchise wasn’t quite enough.

Sad camper.

It’s been a troubled road for System Shock 3. Prior to this setback, the game was in the works under the Starbreeze banner. But following the company’s failure with The Walking Dead, it opted to sell the rights back to OtherSide Entertainment to make up lost funds.

Warren Spector, the creative director behind the series, did state that OtherSide was in talks with a “lot” of publishers back in May 2019, but Spector hasn’t spoken about this current situation.

That said, the franchise will soon return in a different way at least. Nightdive Studios is still working on its remaster of the original System Shock, though there’s no release date just yet.

Here’s hoping that we haven’t seen the last of SHODAN.