GameWatcher reports that Otherside Entertainment has recently laid off a number of important developers. What this means for System Shock 3 is not certain at this stage but there are rumblings from former employees.
More information.The former Community Manager then pointed at a thread on RPGCodex, where another former OtherSide Austin employee, going by the username Kin Corn Karn, was detailing the situation behind doors.
"Warren [Spector, Studio Director] kept promising us a play test to give Boston feedback, but for whatever reason it never happened, so most of us didn't play it until it launched. We were horrified. Not only was it a financial loss for the company, the damage to our reputation was irreversible even if Austin had nothing to do with it. When the news about Starbreeze came it cast a big shadow over our hopes to find a new publisher.", they said on the OtherSide Boston-developed Underworld Ascendant which launched in a disastrous state.
"There's a lot of criticism of Warren here that I don't think is very fair. He was the most visible face of the team so I imagine it's natural to assign him blame, but if anything we needed more of his direct involvement. The team had a lot of strong personalities and he was mostly hands-off. In person he has a very gentle, kind, and humble demeanor. He had a good vision for the game, and perhaps some ambitions that were outside our reach, but I don't recall his involvement ever being corrosive.", he continued, describing Warren Spector.
They then proceed to outline a series of problems that made System Shock 3's development difficult. These included developing the title in Unity instead of Unreal Engine 4, an understaffed design team, and "milestone tunnel vision" (which they say saw the work from milestone demos being thrown away).
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