The 2023 remake of System Shock is a treat, being one of the few originally developed games by the remaster gods over at Nightdive Studios. It’s an admirable revival of an ambitious game with a control scheme most modern gamers probably wouldn’t be able to parse. It sticks close enough to the original to not feel ashamed of its roots, but is trying to modernize to be more approachable. This also means the control scheme is playable on a controller, allowing console versions to introduce the System Shock series to as many audiences as possible.
With System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster on Switch being a great way to experience the classic immersive sim, I had high hopes for the Nintendo Switch 2 port. Immersive sims on a portable device are just a perfect fit for me, since that’s the best way for me to get engrossed in any game. I had played this before on my PC when it came out, and had doubted they’d ever be able to get this on a Switch. Well, here it is, out on both the original Switch and Switch 2. There’s no upgrade path, as both versions are custom-designed for that platform despite being the same game. We only had access to the Switch 2 version for this review.
After a brief prologue, your hacker protagonist wakes up on Citadel Station. The AI Shonan has gone rogue, and you need to make your way through the decrepit halls and survive from waves of robots and revived corpses. Shonan herself fights you at every turn, and you have to slowly take control of the station floor by floor, section by section. Along the way, you’ll find records from the people who lived, and eventually died, on the station to piece together what happened.
In trying to lean more on the gameplay loop of System Shock 2, they’ve focused mainly on the survival systems. You control this game sort of like the modern System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster on controller, but without going all in on it being a full-on modern immersive sim. You’re going to the same places, doing the same things, as the original game. How information is presented to the user is just clearer, with all your logs to give you hints easier to access than ever.
Most hours of this are spent sneaking around, killing enemies with whatever resources you can scrounge together, and solving puzzles. Shodan will respawn enemies often, and security cameras are ready to alert the horde of them to your presence, so if you aren’t attentive, you’ll find yourself overwhelmed and dying often. I wouldn’t say the combat or shooting is particularly impressive, but there’s a clunky feeling to the play that I think works great for survival horror. It could feel better, but for an AA first-person shooter, it works well and accomplishes what it needs to do.
I adore the gameplay loop of survival and resource gathering. In playing on normal, I never felt like I had a large edge over Shonan or her forces. Fighting one enemy wandering around could cause you serious problems if you’re not careful. Going melee to save bullets could get you killed, since going up close with anyone can get you killed fast. Wasting bullets on normal enemies could leave you in a bad position when you turn the corner and see a couple of cyborgs with guns. Or a turret. Every encounter requires split-second decisions, trying to manage your resources against all odds.
I’m not particularly fond of the cyberspace minigame, which involves you needing to fly around and accomplish specific goals to unlock doors. You have a full 360 degrees of motion accessible, which can get kind of sickening if you’re sensitive to that. They’ve done a lot to clean it up over the original, at least, and I respect that even the first level requires you to take things carefully. You also have a more traditional hacking minigame with circuit boards that can open doors for more resources. Time isn’t frozen in this mode, so there’s always a worry of someone getting the jump on you and taking you out. There really is nowhere safe on Citadel Station.
The aesthetic they’ve gone with is very charming in how on the nose it tries to adapt pixelated early 3D into modern 3D. Walls, chairs, desks, and more all have their finer details filled in with large blocky pixels. I feel that this aesthetic for remakes walks a fine line between uncanny and cheap-looking, but this remake pulls it off well. I often enjoyed getting up close to textures to simply study them and see how committed the team was to the pixel aesthetic. Resolution is pretty high on the Switch 2 version, so it allows the art style to really breathe.
You’re able to customize a lot of the experience as well. There’s gyro and mouse control, of which the sensitivity can be customized in-depth. Gyro feels particularly good for this game, especially with how much you need to aim your shots to not waste any bullets. You have 13 different language options, a customizable HUD, and most options you’d be able to see on a PC port are here. You can’t change any graphics options besides motion blur, but I like how much you can customize it to fit your preferences.
I’d love nothing more than to just leave it here and tell you that this is a fun game that is now playable on the Switch 2. Unfortunately, since launch, this game has had wildly unstable performance. A casual look at this game might have people confused at that, when this isn’t really too graphically intensive. This is not a AAA game by any means, and yet some of those have Switch 2 ports that are fantastic, like Star Wars Outlaws. Despite each floor of the citadel being mostly tight hallways and modest open areas, the framerate is wildly unstable. It targets 60 frames per second, but cannot hit it regularly.
In the pre-launch period, docked and undocked had the same level of stability problems. It felt like it was always going between 30 and 45 frames per second. Shortly after this, it was updated to its 2.0.3 state, and docked seemed to be much better, often hitting 60 more regularly. This came with a steep caveat, though, as undocked became much worse in this state. I don’t have exact numbers, but by my best estimate, it would drop to 15 frames per second in all the areas I tested. Undocked is in an unplayable state right now.
I think they’ll be able to get this version of the game working well at some point, but it’s clearly not ready yet. I gave it some grace because Nightdive Studios is usually good at fixing up their releases. After a month, though, we’re going to review it as we see it right now. I have heard of an upcoming patch that claims to fix performance issues. We don’t have an expected date for that, but given that 2.0.3 was supposed to fix the performance, I’m not entirely convinced. This is the version of the game they’re selling right now, and it’s just not good enough to play this on Switch 2 over other platforms. I’m hopeful this will eventually be good, so we will see if that happens. Give this one some extra time in the oven before you dive in.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch 2
Review copy provided by Atari
