System Shock’s owner says it’s now up to Tencent if sequels get made
Nightdive Studios, the owner of the System Shock IP, has clarified the status of the long-missing-in-action System Shock 3, claiming that it’s now up to Tencent if the sequel gets made.
System Shock 3 had spent several years in development at Austin, Texas-based Otherside Entertainment – the studio helmed by original SS developers Paul Neurath and Warren Spector – before disappearing from the public arena completely in 2020.
Eventually, a statement was published on Otherside’s website claiming that Tencent would be “taking the System Shock franchise forward”.
However, there has been no clarification in the two years since on what exactly this means for the future of Otherside’s game, despite an analysis of LinkedIn suggesting that virtually all of System Shock’s development team has long since left.
Speaking to VGC at Gamescom, Nightdive CEO Stephen Kick claimed that the rights to the third game, which it had originally granted to Otherside, had subsequently been sold on to the Chinese conglomerate.
It’s now up to Tencent whether a third game gets made, he told VGC.
“When we originally acquired the rights to the franchise, we licensed the rights for the third game to Warren and Paul [Neurath] at Otherside. They then subsequently sold their rights to Tencent,” he explained.
“So Tencent currently has the rights to the third game, and we have the rights to do the remake of the first game and potentially a remake of the second game. That’s pretty much where it stands right now.”
Kick clarified that it’s currently down to Tencent if the third game gets made at all, and claimed he did not know if either Spector or Neurath were involved in such a project. “I honestly don’t know. I know Paul and Warren are still making games, but that’s
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