System Shock Remake Will Launch at Its Very Best on PS5, PS4

Can't wait! Never played the original but it's always fascinated me considering it's one of the OGs of "immersive sims". An awesome genre but the name always seems a little mismatched to me.

If you only see the new female protagonist twice in the entire game and they are completely silent then it seems a bit disingenuous to claim you've made this decision to attain some kind of "immersive quality".
For the record, I don't care either way, my problem is with the excuse. Just come out and say that you wanted a gender option and be done with it.

@LifeGirl you gotta advertise those minor feature additions in some alluring way for the modern, Western market who love that kinda **** 😂

Seems like another missed opportunity to make this something truly special by also adding a VR mode.

@Loamy @lifegirl Couldn’t this inherently add to immersion, having your character more closely aligned with your personal identity, even if you only see them a couple times? Being more inclusive is always a good thing, and not “that kinda ****”. 🙄

As a woman, having a female protagonist option in a game goes a long way in making the experience more immersive for me regardless of how often I see/hear my character, so I find this "minor" addition pretty cool. I've never heard of this game before but I'll definitely be checking it out solely for this feature.

This "easy mode waypoint system" has me interested now; I was gonna give it a miss due to how close to the original's confusing navigation it was and I have zero sense of direction or good memory, so this is welcome.

Normally in a game where there is optional male/female, I tend to go for the female version as they usually have the better designs/armour/equipment or whatever.

Definitely day one buy.

Never played the original but remember hearing it was awesome. I’ll definitely play this remake!

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Not to mention better voice acting, too. Cyberpunk and AC: Odyssey are great examples of this.

Whenever possible I always pick female MC because they usually have the best voice acting behind them (i.e. Mass Effect, Cyberpunk) but it's the inclusion of "easy mode waypoint system" that it will make me finally play the game. I missed out on the original.

@ear_wig Oh no. Misunderstanding here. I completely agree with adding options for male/female protagonists. I always choose female, although I'm male myself. Usually because of the voice actor and the female outfit options. Women always have better outfit choices and that goes for real life too!

The choice has never affected my reasoning to buy a game "solely" on that choice though, @GloriosaDaisy but that's also fine if it adds to your enjoyment. Personally I've never cared whether a set protagonist is male or female as long as they're a good character.

I just was just making a poor and cynical joke about the corporate/ marketing speak of that feature. "That *****" was not about the inclusion but rather the wording. But yeah, I agree that it would make it "more immersive", although I find it a funny choice of words that are clearly used to maximise effect. Some might not see any humour in this but I didn't mean it as some grand dismissal of the inclusion.

I have zero qualms about such a thing being included. Options when it comes to character creation is always a big +

Really looking forward to this, it had such great atmosphere back in the day

@ear_wig
If it's done right.
Often it's just forced, godawful Mary Sue characters that do the exact opposite of what they "strive for" (they don't. They don't care.) Here it doesn't matter much anyway, so it's fine

On a different note, I never understood being more immersed because a character looks more like yourself. If I have the choice, I always make female characters, but I think it's dumb. They're always supid/ deaf/ mute, etc.

I have way more immersion in polished, drawn out characters that are already actual characters like Geralt or Henry from Kingdom Come.

I'm enjoying DD2, but I think the story sucks for this exact reason

@Specky Yes, I had an entirely on-topic reply where I disagree with your point about "Mary Sue" characters. It would be great to discuss this point but evidently not right now.

Bottom line is: "Mary Sue" characters are pretty rare these days and Dragon's Dogma 2 is GOTY 2024

@tameshiyaku please don't be offensive to those who are genuinely gender-fluid. Or those with mechanical limb assistance. A gender-fluid platypus does not exist, nor does one with bionic parts, no matter how hard one wills it.

@Loamy I like playing everyone and everything different from boring old me.

@tameshiyaku Same. I'll role-play as far as I can get from my real-life self.

@Loamy that's what it's about at the end of the day, though some like to forget about it.

@tameshiyaku you're a they after my own heart then.

I've played a small amount of the original System Shock a few years ago on PC. Always had my eye on the remake ever since Digital Foundry did a video on it.

I'm still mixed on whether I should get this or Paper Mario in May. My heart leans towards this since I love immersive sims but I've also read very positive things about Paper Mario.

@Loamy The term "immersive sim", at least originally, referred to games that pursued immersion through responsive worlds. At the time the pursuit of realism and fidelity was compromising interactivity, often to the detriment of design, and they where the counterpoint.

Any details on how this might run on the PS4? I've yet to upgrade, but if the PS4 version is 30fps and runs decently, I will most definitely be getting this.

@LifeGirl @Loamy
I have found over the years that usually i find female characters so immersion breaking for myself (male), that it normally knocks a game down a few points when im choosing whether to buy a game or not. Given that the opposite will also be true, I am 100% behind adding both male and female to all games wherever possible (eg Hogwarts, Elden ring, AC Valhalla), ie where you are not using an established character.
However, I agree, given the unusually small number of events where you see or hear the character, i am not sure it would make a huge difference for this game and the level of publicity talk for the feature may just be a little OTT...

The "easy mode checkpoints" sounds like a great way to introduce people to the game's mechanics, and hopefully the game will have a way to encourage people to move onto the normal mode.

I hope this gets a physical that isn't LRG

@breakneck This remake isn't really an imsim in my opinion, so I would consider that in your decision. I still liked the game when I played in on PC last year, but it doesn't have many of the qualities that are typically used to describe immersive sims. It's not very similar to System Shock 2 (or even Bioshock) as far as depth of system interactions and opportunities for player creativity. I went into it thinking it was something it isn't and was slightly disappointed over it. On the other hand, Paper Mario Thousand Year Door is, one of, if not the best, turn-based RPGs ever made imho. Can't say for sure if they mess up something in the Switch version of course. As a lover of both imsims and Paper Mario, I would say get Paper Mario first, and wait for System Shock remake to go on sale.

Hopefully pushsquare will review this one. Too bad the Stalker trilogy didn't get one.