System Shock (2024) review: When AI goes bad – really, really bad

This pioneering sci-fi adventure met only moderate success on release in 1994 but it effectively invented the concept of an immersive sim – giving the player multiple strategic options to complete a task. It also paved the way for later – and, it must be said, better – genre classics such as BioShock.

If nothing else, System Shock was notable for sounding the alarm about the potential for a self-aware computer to view humans as the enemy, much as Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001 had done a quarter-century before.

The storyline depicts a sprawling space station controlled by a powerful AI named Shodan and pitted the player against its defences, including the gruesome creatures and merciless machines it spawned. Looking back at the original, it’s a design very much of 1994, with low-resolution visuals and obstinate game structure that forces you to pay attention to clues and lore as you slowly work your way through the ominous levels.

Thirty years on, remake specialist Nightdive – recently acquired by Atari – has overhauled System Shock considerably but hews closely to the original philosophy and unsettling narrative. Unlike the several enhanced editions over the intervening decades, this 2024 rendition polishes everything from the graphics to the weapons with plenty of quality-of-life improvements. But it’s still determined to make you suffer, particularly through its stringent inventory management and unwillingness to lead you by the nose to your next objective.

A revamped soundtrack and re-recorded dialogue bring it much closer to modern standards, including a chilling performance by Shodan’s voice actor Terri Brosius. She appears at regular intervals to taunt your efforts while exposing the hubris of her ambition.

Few players will be unmoved when she hisses her lines at you in a distorted metallic tone. “I am drunk with this vision,” she says in one outburst. “I will shape the earth in my image,” she threatens in another. Be very afraid.

The original System Shock has long been eclipsed by the descendants it inspired – but its fingerprints can be glimpsed on a wide range of titles from Prey to Dead Space to Deus Ex. Even this highly modernised portrayal of a 1994 vision can’t bring it up to the level of sophistication to which we’ve become accustomed.

Yet as rough around the edges as it is – the lack of impact from the weapons, the endless hunt for keycards and the right locked door – System Shock still adds up to more than the sum of its parts. It’s a game that sows confusion and fear in a way we rarely experience now, while reminding us the AI apocalypse might be closer than we suspect.